News

Borland agrees to distribute eBay SDKs

• By John K. Waters
• June 1, 2004

Online trading giant eBay expanded the reach of its growing developer program by signing up Borland Software to distribute eBay and PayPal SDKs to Delphi developers. The agreement with Borland, disclosed at Microsoft's TechEd 2004 conference in San Diego, brings the two companies together in a joint marketing and distribution program.

Current users of the Borland Delphi development toolset can download the eBay and PayPal SDKs and begin using them today, said Jeffery McManus, eBay's senior manager of platform evangelism; the tools will come bundled in the next release.

'It makes it easy for the developers,' McManus told eADT, 'and it provides them with an integrated way to get it all right out of the box when they install Delphi. It let's them know that we're there, and that we think Borland makes highly productive development tools that are good choices for building applications that incorporate eBay and PayPal.'

San Jose, Calif.-based eBay, which operates one of the world's largest online marketplaces, launched its developer program in 2000. But the company only recently began an aggressive campaign to encourage developers to create applications that tap into the eBay platform, as well as PayPal's online payment services. (eBay owns PayPal.)

The so-called eBay platform is a trading community where tens of millions of people can get together to buy and sell practically anything on a daily basis. Adding the eBay and PayPal SDKs to the Delphi toolbox provides these developers with access to resources to help them build Web services applications that tap into the eBay marketplace, as well as PayPal's online payment services.

George Paolini, VP and GM of developer tools at Borland, contended that the agreement will benefit both firms in the long run as Delphi developers help their companies to create new business opportunities.

eBay's McManus added that the agreement 'is definitely a win-win situation and kind of a no-brainer. Borland has a huge and vibrant developer community. We're trying to convey to that community that eBay is a great target for creating compelling e-commerce applications. And what they are trying to convey to our development community is that the Borland tools are very advanced and productive development environments. It was obvious that we should be cooperating.'

Developers who join the eBay Developers Program can access the company's SDK offerings and other technical resources. According to eBay, membership in the program is expanding fast, from fewer than 200 a year ago to more than 4,000 today.

The PayPal Developer Network (PDN) is designed to enable developers to add e-commerce capabilities to their Web sites and applications. According to eBay, the PDN has more than 160,000 members.

For more information about the eBay Developers Program, visit http://developer.ebay.com. For info on the PayPal Developer Network, go to http://www.paypal.com/pdn .