Accessing and adding shared contacts Sharepoint server

Today i am faced with a problem that the compan开发者_StackOverflowy i work for is going to try to centralize their global sales team`s contacts to a SharePoint server.

There are 2 parts to my question,

Firstly is there a web server or API i can use to programatically add contacts which i have stored on a local database to the sharepoint shared contacts list?

Secondly is there a web service which i can plug into to do the reverse? basically the plan is one the sales team have been using it for a while they would like a way in which we can use that contact information for analytics.

Thanks

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SharePoint has numerous Web services. The Lists Web service will probably the one you need (2007, 2010). Start with the GetListItems and UpdateListItems methods.

Additionally, SharePoint 2010 supports a JavaScript client object model.