Microsoft is acquiring Apiphany, a one-year-old Washington-D.C. startup that offers an application programming interface (API) management product, Microsoft announced on October 23.

Apiphany's API Management platform allows developers to launch, control and scale their APIs in the cloud, according to a descriptor on the company's Web site. "It's SaaS (software as a service) delivered in a simple, pay-as-you-go utility model," the company's site noted.

Microsoft isn't disclosing terms of the deal. The Softies announced the purchase on the Windows Azure blog. Steven Martin, Azure Business and Marketing General Manager, blogged that "cloud computing has rapidly accelerated the use case for extensibility, which has increased the value of the APIs."

Martin said Microsoft will be surfacing the acquired API management services within Windows Azure "and providing our customers with the technology they need to grow their API ecosystem very soon."

Aiphany is not making its API management services available to new customers, according to its Web site.

In its own blog post on the deal, the Apiphany Team told customers:

"The Apiphany API Management and Delivery Platform will soon re-emerge as an and integrated Windows Azure API management service. A talented and dedicated Apiphany team will become an integral part of the Windows Azure engineering team."

Apiphany made the latest Fall releaese of its API platform available on October 10.

Earlier this week, the Windows Azure team rolled out the general-availability version of its Windows Azure Backup Services; a public preview of Windows Azure Hyper-V Recovery Manager and an update to its Windows Azure software development kit (now at version 2.2).