In a video message on YouTube, eBay CEO John Donahoe told developers that with its forthcoming acquisition of Magento, eBay would have all the pieces to create the global commerce operating system. This week PayPal outlined its plan to restructure its developers program, X.com, under its new name, X.commerce, which includes eBay’s developer program and will soon include Magento. (To clarify, X.Commerce is an eBay Inc. organization.)
PayPal’s Senior Director of the PayPal Developer Network Naveed Anwar will now run the X.Commerce Developer Network, and in a post on what was formerly called the PayPal Developer blog, he said the program would build on the openness of the Magento platform. “In fact we are going to make that process easy with more capabilities in our open commerce platform. So you can innovate more and forget about all the nitty-gritty details.”
He then outlined members of the X.Commerce Developer program:
Sergio Gonzalez – Sergio previously headed the eBay Developer Network. Now he and his team are responsible for our events and outreach efforts to make sure that we are present at the right places where you want to see us.
Carolyn Mellor – Carolyn is the “Zen Goddess of Developer Happiness” :-). She and her team will be responsible for managing the combined communities. She will also making sure your voice is heard and your feedback is captured to enhance the platform.
Praveen Alavilli – Praveen and his team is going to be running our evangelism and documentation group. So if you ever have any issues with our API’s, SDK’s or Toolkits, he is your man.
Amy Piazza – Amy and her team manage the x.com portal and will make sure you have the latest and greatest content on this site to help you find what you need.
Anwar said the developers program is about placing third parties into a business model, enabling them to generate real cash. “It’s about creating an entire ecosystem for the community. It’s about lots and lots of communication, support and empathy as well as an ongoing commitment to provide for our evolving community’s needs.”
Magento’s founder Roy Rubin had his own message to developers along with a video, available on the Magento blog.
Following the acquisition, Magento will continue to operate out of Los Angeles, led by Rubin and Yoav Kutner. “We’ll continue building our team and enhancing our product line, including the Magento Community, Enterprise, and Mobile Editions, as well as Magento Go and the Magento Go Platform. And we’ll continue strengthening our training, education, packaged consulting services and support efforts around the world. Through it all, we’ll be collaborating with our colleagues at eBay on developing the X.Commerce platform and defining the next generation of eCommerce innovation.”
More information about the new combined developers program will be available at the upcoming X.Commerce Innovate Developer Conference on October 12-13 in San Francisco.
Edited for clarity 6/9/11.
Update 6/9/11: PayPal PR insists this is not a restructuring of the PayPal X Developer Network, stating that “eBay Inc. restructured its developer program to include Magento and PayPal. It’s eBay’s newly created platform group, made up of the developer communities at eBay, PayPal and Magento – this is not PayPal’s restructuring.”
