Analyzing Values of API Economy Based on Software Quality Characteristics

Abstract

When multiple functionally-equivalent APIs are available from different providers within API economy, an application developer (as an API consumer) chooses one of them based on his/her sense of value. In this paper, we address an issue of how individual developers within API economy consider values of APIs. In general, an application developer benefits from an API provider by outsourcing a part of “work”' necessary for the application. Hence, the quality of the “work” done by the API significantly influences the value for the developer. Based on the fact, we propose a model that systematically analyzes values of API based on its quality. To cover various viewpoints of quality, we re-interpret the software quality model SQuaRE in the context of API economy, and derive quality characteristics relevant to API values. We also examine a method that quantifies the API value for a developer.