Wikinventia — Atlas of discoveries and inventions · Digital Age

Software as a service with public API (SaaS via API) — Salesforce and eBay

2000 AD · Transmission: Global
ComputingEventNorth American

In 2000 two companies independently and almost simultaneously establish the model defining the modern API economy. Salesforce launches its CRM as a browser-only service with an integrated XML API from day one, with Marc Benioff coining "Internet as a Service" and "The End of Software". eBay then launches the eBay API and Developers Program, the first API opened universally to external developers. Together they establish the two axes of the API business model. Amazon expands it with AWS from 2002; the pattern transforms the Internet into a network of interoperable services.

InstitutionSalesforce, Inc. / eBay Inc.
Historical regionUSA
Primary sourceAPI Evangelist — History of APIs (2012); Postman Blog (2024)
Secondary sourceNordic APIs — The Salesforce API Journey (2025)
Original languageEnglish
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