Listened to an NTen sponsored call today with Sheeraz Haji and Tom Krackeler of GetActive and Gene Austin and Dave Crooke of Convio.  Both companies seemed very optimistic about their planned merger which will aim to take the best from both companies, e.g. online fundraising from Convio and advocacy / CMS from GetActive.  Time will tell how things will play out as current customers learn more about migration.

Meanwhile, the issue of how to connect data in different systems was squarely addressed in a comprehensive report on Open APIs by Michelle Murrain and Katrin Verclas, available free from NTen.  At my current organization, we’re struggling with two separate integration projects, one which involves two products from the same company.  Open APIs are important because then you don’t necessarily have to get everything from the same vendor.  While Convio & GetActive will make a good try, it’s hard for any one company to offer the best of breed for many different applications.