Microsoft Acquires Apiphany, An API Management Service To Integrate With Windows Azure

Microsoft has acquired Apiphany, an API management company that it will integrate with Windows Azure. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

A short post about the acquisition is on the Windows Azure blog, citing the increasing value of APIs and the new level of management required to expose APIS reliably, securely and at scale. In the post, Microsoft General Manager said Apiphany provides businesses of any size the tools they need to expose particular endpoints while selectively gating access to more sensitive data and services.”

Apipahny, of Washington, D.C., with customers such as the Washington Post, offers a portal for companies to manage their APis. API Analyst Kin Lane, in a review last May, said Apiphany has three main components for API deployment and consumption It has the ability to manage the operations that come with managing multiple APIs, services for developers that provide access to various combinations of API resources and operations and access to apps that are registered with the platform.

Apiphany’s acquisition points to the consolidation of the API management market.Earlier this year, Intel bought Mashery for more than $180 million and CA acquired Layer 7. Mulesoft acquired Programmable Web. And then Facebook jumped in and bought Parse.

The service Apiphany provides will be missed as it was one of the last to offer an affordable platform for developers to manage their APIs. It cost $50 per month. Other services, bowing to market and investor demands, have focused more on enterprise plays more so than developers.