AT&T, Deutsche Telekom, Salesforce and China Telecom Support TM Forum’s Open APIs

TM Forum, the industry association driving digital transformation through collaboration, has announced that AT&T, China Telecom, Deutsche Telekom and Salesforce support TM Forum’s Open APIs.

These companies joined an esteemed list of the world’s largest service providers and vendors already requiring the Open APIs, including Axiata, Bharti Airtel, BT, China Mobile, China Unicom, Ericsson, Globe, Huawei, IBM, MyRepublic, NTT-Group, Oracle, Orange, Telefonica and Vodafone, among others.

TM Forum’s suite of over 50 REST-based Open APIs are used by more than 7,000 software developers in over 1,200 companies worldwide. Developed within TM Forum’s unique Collaboration program over the past three years, the APIs are being used in a range of scenarios, internally enabling businesses to transform their IT and operational agility and customer-centricity, while externally delivering a practical approach to seamless end-to-end management of complex digital services.

By formally adopting TM Forum’s Open APIs and signing the Open API Manifesto these latest companies are committing to incorporate them in their products or requiring them in their RFP process. In addition, they agree to be integral players in the broader collaborative community, working within TM Forum’s Collaboration program to continuously innovate and enhance the suite of Open APIs.

Deutsche Telekom, one of the major contributors to TM Forum’s collaborative work, has been using TM Forum’s Open APIs to transform their complex back-end systems with a single mobile application, according to Peter Leukert, Global Chief Information Officer, Deutsche Telekom. “DTs rapid deployment of APIs is a core competency that all operators can benefit from,” said Leukert. “With this new approach we were able to significantly reduce time-to-market for the IT delivery of complex programs and bring significant business value very short time period.”

“Open APIs and open source software are at the heart of our network transformation, and we’re thrilled at the broader ecosystem that’s adopting the same approach,” said Chris Rice, Senior Vice President, Network Cloud & Infrastructure at AT&T. “TM Forum has played a critical role in nurturing this ecosystem, and we’re pleased to support their Open API initiative.”

APIs allow businesses to connect, forge profitable partnerships, monetize data and innovate. They also help businesses become a lot more efficient, both in terms of reducing operational and technology costs as well as the time it takes to get new products to market, noted George Glass, Vice President Architecture and APIs, TM Forum.

“Adding AT&T, Deutsche Telekom and Salesforce to our Open API Manifesto is an important milestone for our Open API program overall,” said Glass. “Not only does it show that these organizations are committed to using and driving forward the adoption of industry standard inter connectivity via our Open APIs, but it also shows the value of rapid partner onboarding and effective management of the full partner lifecycle.”