API management tools act as a bridge between your good, great and awesome API and an extensive range of databases, operating systems, and front-end user applications.  The API your organisation has worked so long and hard to build simply won't realise all of its terrific usefulness and the outermost limits of widespread adoption without some means of connecting with the myriad platforms that are out there.

An excellent case in point is that of Perceptive Software, Inc., which decided to go with Progress® DataDirect Connect® for ODBC.  Perceptive Software has a fantastic product called ImageNow that suffered from essentially being on an island.  As an article on progress.com puts it, “People would tell us that they really liked our product,” recalls Jesse Armstrong, Senior Product Manager at Perceptive Software. “But...since our product used only its own embedded database, we’d have to tell them that we would not be able to assist them in their solution,” if, let's say, that customer wanted to use an Oracle database instead.  Obviously this condition greatly hurt sales, so something was needed to give ImageNow more room to grow.

The article goes on to say that Perceptive Software thankfully had the choice of "embedding Progress DataDirect Connect for ODBC drivers in the ImageNow software," with the result that "Perceptive Software was able to add support for SQL Server, Oracle, and DB2 all in one shot, shaving many months off the product’s time to market."  The article cites other factors that contributed to ImageNow's success, but the greatly enhanced adaptability of ImageNow, thanks to using Progress DataDirect Connect for ODBC, obviously helped a great deal.  The upshot of all this is that Perceptive Software increased its workforce and its revenue tenfold.

API management tools are also of tremendous help when it comes to documentation, analytics, security, etc.  According to an article by George Psistakis titled API Management tools: How to find the one for you, some API management tools like CA Layer 7 offer "services range[ing] from integration, security management, performance management, mobile API gateways, mobile optimization and developer portals."  The latter three are especially helpful and useful for today's highly mobile work force.