- IBM cat brain simulation dismissed as 'hoax' by rival scientist
- Cisco pedigree wins over VCs
- De-Worm your iPhone
- Steve Jobs is a man of a few words
- Holiday gift guide
PayPal used its inaugural PayPal X Innovate 2009 conference in San Francisco to officially announce the PayPal X program to release APIs allowing developers to integrate PayPal seamlessly into third-party applications. The expanded functionality will help PayPal to compete against similar online payment services from Amazon and Google.
The new PayPal APIs allow developers to engage customers directly within their own applications rather than forcing them to port users off to the actual PayPal site. Users who don't even use PayPal can actually sign up for PayPal within the third-party application and begin making PayPal payments seamlessly from within the third-party application.
PayPal wants to make it easier for developers to leverage its payment system, ostensibly making PayPal a sort of de facto currency for the Web. Part of the goal of opening PayPal to developers is also to expand the types of transactions PayPal is used for to include things like paying rent, or employee payroll.
PayPal also has its eye on smart phones and wants to incorporate PayPal payments into mobile applications. Google Checkout is already working on mobile devices, and Nokia is working on its own mobile payment system, Nokia Money.
PayPal is an established name in online transactions. It built a reputation for providing a safe and secure means of making payments for things like EBay purchases. It worked so well and got so popular that EBay eventually bought PayPal in 2002.
PayPal doesn't provide the service as a charity though. There are fees involved and some users have taken issue with those fees (including recently adding fees without notice for services that were previously free).
Rather than adopt PayPal (and the fees that come with it) for online payment, Amazon and Google have developed homegrown online payment systems. Google and Amazon are both online gorillas, and Amazon is a huge online retail site, so the competition is a threat to PayPal.
A couple years ago PayPal introduced the Website Payments Pro program aimed at providing small and medium businesses (SMB) with a platform for conducting secure online transactions. The new PayPal X API's provide an even more integral and seamless opportunity for SMB's to leverage PayPal for both incoming and outgoing financial transactions.
Tony Bradley is an information security and unified communications expert with more than a decade of enterprise IT experience. He tweets as @PCSecurityNews and provides tips, advice and reviews on information security and unified communications technologies on his site at tonybradley.com.
Rss FeedRss Feed
The Leader in Network Knowledge
Partner Content
www.bmc.com
Gartner 2009 Magic Quadrant for Job Scheduling
Gartner has positioned BMC CONTROL-M in the Leaders Quadrant of their "2009 Magic Quadrant for Job Scheduling." The report assesses the ability to execute and completeness of vision of key vendors in the marketplace. Read a full copy today, courtesy of BMC Software.
Download whitepaper
Dell's SMART Approach to Workload Automation
Read a compelling case study by EMA, Inc. to learn how Dell uses BMC CONTROL-M to cut cost and increase productivity with workload automation.
Download whitepaper
Workload Automation Cost Savings 2 Minute Video
A major computer manufacturer uses BMC CONTROL-M and just four people to schedule and run over 85,000 jobs every month. By switching to BMC CONTROL-M, they more than quadrupled the workload without adding a single staff member. See how in this 2-minute video overview.
Go to video
Comment