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

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.