Arrrgh.

I’m going to start pulling my hair out. For the second time in as many weeks, a story just crossed my desk referencing SIP as an API. First, we had AOL’s announcement of their voice APIs. Then, we have (apparently, as I have not read it yet, and now I feel badly that I didn’t connect with Jahangir) the iLocus report stating that…

Surprisingly SIP is the most popular API even with all the noise about web services APIs. Certainly some of the most popular Voice 2.0 applications are those developed by the ones with telecom background. How that will change over the next couple of years remains to be seen. But all the efforts around web services APIs then seem to make little sense if telcos/vendors are not able to attract web developers.

Please, SIP is not an API. SIP is a protocol, like SS7, HTML, FTP and what you do when you meet a king. An API is a software definition of how two pieces of software connect together, like the GoogleGears API, the Win32 software development kit and the Mozilla Firefox Plugin API. APIs are what you do when you meet a compiler. The problem is, we’ve got a bunch of people driving the car that have never met a compiler.

Let me do some in-depth Wikipedia research here :

In computing, a protocol is a convention or standard that controls or enables the connection, communication, and data transfer between two computing endpoints. In its simplest form, a protocol can be defined as the rules governing the syntax, semantics, and synchronization of communication. Protocols may be implemented by hardware, software, or a combination of the two. At the lowest level, a protocol defines the behavior of a hardware connection.

an API?

An application programming interface (API) is a source code interface that an operating system, library or service provides to support requests made by computer programs.[1]

I don’t mean to be the geek and pick on my business focused bretheren. Let’s just get it right. Would you like to know WHY web developers aren’t rushing to the telco APIs? Maybe it’s because we keep telling them that SIP is an API!

Arrgggh.

Posted by Thomas Howe @ 4:36 pm | Filed Under Lead Stories |

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