The CEO of API provider Apigee, Chet Kapoor (pictured), believes operators and app developers are increasingly embracing APIs as they appreciate the benefits they can bring.

“The number of service providers out there that want to jump on the bandwagon is definitely increasing,” Kapoor told Mobile World Live in a new video interview.

“As with any industry change or transformation, some of them get it sooner and some of them will get it later,” he noted, adding that Apigee’s partners Telefonica, AT&T and Vodafone are “moving on very quickly”.

“If you look at what a service provider does, they have many assets. And they are starting to see that those assets should be made available to developers to build applications,” Kapoor added.

The Apigee chief explained that operators are keen to use APIs to build their own mobile apps, open up their services and assets to enterprise customers and to access long tail content.

“Everybody wants to look for the [next] Angry Birds. You never know when you’re going to find it but you need an open garden and [to] sow many seeds and see which one grows fast,” he said.

Developers are also seeing how operators can help them, according to Kapoor, who said service providers building their own ecosystems will soon capture the mindshare of developers: “Over a period of time, there’s no reason why service providers should not get the hearts and minds of developers.”

View the full video interview here.