Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2019.  Read them in this 11th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.

Contributed by Simon Peel, Chief Strategy Officer, Jitterbit

API Acquisition Frenzy

We are witnessing an industry shift in which separate markets for API management solutions and integration solutions are converging - and this is setting off a string of acquisitions on both sides of the fence. I believe we will see more API management vendors and pure-play integration vendors merge or get acquired - or at the very least create partnerships that ensure all their customers have access to API management solutions and integration solutions that are somehow combined together. 

The fundamental driver behind this trend is that APIs are there to deliver data and that data sits in a myriad of systems. We've already seen the start of this trend with Google, Apigee and Informatica. After acquiring Apigee, which focused on API management, Google realized that it needed a more comprehensive solution to truly extract value from connectivity. They announced a partnership with Informatica, which focused on integration, to embed its capabilities directly in Apigee's product.

This reinforces something we've known for years, which is that connectivity solutions need to have API lifecycle and enterprise integration working seamlessly together in a single platform. The market as a whole is increasingly recognizing this, and I think we will see more vendors who stayed in either the API management or integration market, such as Tibco Mashery, CA Technologies, and smaller players like Kong, look for partners or acquisitions on the other side. It will be interesting what we end up with as this trend continues to accelerate.

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About the Author

Simon is the chief strategy officer and chief marketing officer at Jitterbit, where his primary responsibility is driving hyper-growth. A self-confessed growth-hacker, Simon has dedicated his career to taking startup companies from their early stages to successful exits by building world-class deal-generation engines. He most recently led the go-to-market strategy for three of IBM's fastest-growing acquisitions (Cast Iron Systems, a cloud integration company, Worklight, a mobile app developer, and StrongLoop, which focused on API management), where he built global deal engines that delivered triple-digit growth.