A couple years ago I built a very robust and intricate virtual inventory system for integrating with third-party vendors. I created two accessible endpoints: one highly customizeable webservice endpoint (I&#x27;ll literally take any valid XML and work with you to transform it into what I need), and one luddite-friendly SFTP server supporting extraordinarily simple export-from-excel XML output.<p>I was raked over the coals for providing the SFTP&#x2F;Excel solution, &quot;FTP?! What is this, the &#x27;80s?&quot; was the quote that sticks with me.<p>Almost all of our vendors turned out to be small shops. Only two of our dozens of vendors use the webservice, even as easy-like-Sunday-morning as it is. Everyone else uses the Excel solution.<p>It&#x27;s <i>hard</i> to let yourself write the uncool solution that actually fits the bill.