eBay rebuilds infrastructure in eBox initiative

by Jan Harris

In an initiative known as eBox, eBay is rebuilding the technical infrastructure of its eBay.com site. The revamp could enable the site to host applications from external developers.

eBay.com will be rebuilt as an “open platform” comprising a series of modular services, rather than a single, unified application.

This will allow internal engineers, and maybe outside developers, to combine the pre-built services to create new applications without the need for extensive coding.

All of the functions on eBay, including search and inventory management, will be accessible as services via application program interfaces (APIs).

This service-oriented architecture will also make it easier for new features to be introduced.

eBay has not yet made a definite decision on whether to open eBox to outsiders, but the likely business model would be a profit-sharing situation with third-party developers.

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