I believe the SDK license for Aloha is $10, 000 not $25k, at least that's what we paid for it a couple years ago. Then there's a per-store fee which I don't recall.I'm not sure about what kind of web applications you are thinking about. There is extensive web based management and reporting built into Aloha. For other tasks you can hack together something simple without going to the API. After all, Aloha runs on Windows, has a database you can access, uses system hooks you can intercept, depends on how much of a hacker you feel like :) We've even used autohotkey before...

They have some products in the pipeline that will allow storefront web integration and ordering without going to a third party solution. I'm sorry I don't have the info in front of me, it was covered at the last Aloha user's summit, if I find my notes I'll post here.