ROAM Data’s New SDK Turns Mobile Into Commerce/eCommerce Glue

Mobile technology has already transformed from an accessory to a valuable feature at the point of sale, Bill Pittman says. And ROAM Data wants to continue the progression of that transformation.

Pittman, head of program development for ROAM, expects mobile to end up at the middle of everything in payments — perhaps most powerfully as a bridge between online and offline commerce. In particular, he sees tablet devices as playing a key role in bringing the best of online shopping to brick-and-mortar stores.

To that end, ROAM this week is releasing a new software development kit (SDK) for mobile devices. Beyond the application programming interface (API) found in most SDKs, ROAM’s kit also includes its own mobile swipe payment acceptance hardware, additional APIs for ROAMpay Swipe and Boarding, a test account for application trials, and documentation for both iOS and Android.

In our conversation with Pittman, we explore the impact of this new SDK on the further integration of mobile technology at the point of sale, and talk about what to expect in the near future as mobile is integrated even more deeply with existing payments systems.

Listen to the audio interview here.

William Pittman

Head of ROAM Data Developer Program

William (Bill) Pittman is responsible for ROAM Data’s Developer program, designed to provide everything a developer needs to securely integrate ROAM Data mobile device APIs into their mobile commerce applications. Prior to ROAM, Bill was Senior Manager, Product Management – Global Payments Services for Amazon where he was a senior manager for the global payment platform products. Previously Bill has been a successful entrepreneur having started up and sold two payment software companies: GO Software, which developed PCCharge, a platform that became the industry leading PC payment processing software product (and is now sold by VeriFone Systems Inc.); and TPI Software, which developed a payment gateway product called the SmartPayments Server and was eventually sold to Hypercom Corp.