Open Source BaaS Project In The European Union

by Kin Lane on 02/12/2013

The Backend as a Service (BaaS) space is picking up momentum in 2013. I’m tracking on 20 BaaS providers, in hopes of better understanding what is being offered in this space. Today I came across an interesting new, open source BaaS platform, being developed in the European Union called OPENi.

The project describes itself as:

OPENi is a European Union ICT Framework Programme (FP7) Information and communications technology (ICT) Collaborative project. Over the 30 month project duration we aim to deliver an open-source, cloud based platform for integrating mobile services.

With a mission to:

Our mission is to inspire innovation in the European mobile applications industry, by radically improving the interoperability of cloud-based services and trust in personal cloud storage through the development of a consumer-centric, open source mobile cloud applications platform.

With the following objective:

OPENi’s objective is to directly address the lack of interoperability between cloud based services and enable applications to access and use a broad spectrum of existing cloud based functionality and content, consistently across different devices and platforms, in a way that enables a user-centric application experience. Targeting the needs of Application Developers, Services Providers and Consumers, OPENi will realize its vision for user-centric, cloud-connected, mobile applications.

OPENi is a 30 month project, we will have to wait and see what comes out of the iniative. With the EU approach to open data and data privacy, I think there is a lot of potential to deploy and consume APIs, as well as delivering API automation, interoperability and backend platforms that have a healthy, consumer-centric approach--which I believe will be good for business, because its good for ender users.

In early 2013 the OPENi team will release software for the BaaS platform as an open-source project on github.com. When released I will evaluate it side by side with the other BaaS providers I”m tracking on.

If you are going to be at API Strategy & Practice next week, make sure and watch my Backend as a Service Panel with: