BT's Ribbit released its long-awaited Web telephony platform Monday to developers, which BT hopes will help spur innovation for new products and services in the telephony market.
Until now, most telephony advancements have been made by engineers at a particular company working on a closed, proprietary network. But now Ribbit is offering developers the chance to go behind the curtain and use its network to develop new applications.
Developers will be able to gain access to Ribbit's voice over IP SmartSwitch software, as well as a community site and support, monitoring, and management capabilities. The Ribbit platform will allow these developers to design, test, deploy, and manage voice and communication features used on the Web or within other applications. Developers will then be able to sell their applications through a Ribbit Store.
Pricing hasn't been disclosed, but BT plans to charge developers a fee based on the usage of its VoIP platform.
Ribbit, which launched the beta version of its software last year, has already demonstrated how its software can be used to enhance other Web-based applications. Previously, the company integrated its VoIP technology with Saleforce's customer relationship management software so that users can push an e-mail message into Salesforce. This allows them to attach leads and contacts. Users can also make and receive phone calls from within the Salesforce application.
So far, there are already over 600 developers involved in creating new applications on the Ribbit platform, the company said. Some of these applications involve call centers, social networking mash-ups, unified messaging, and other productivity tools.
BT, which bought Ribbit earlier this year for $105 million, said that it's also opening the software platform up to other phone companies. This would allow other carriers to easily access the wide range of new applications that are being created by the more than 7,500 developers who have signed up to use the platform since it was first available in 2007.
"Our vision from the start was 'programmable telephony'--a platform that enables developers around the globe to design, deploy and monetize the next-generation of telecommunication services," Ted Griggs, CEO of Ribbit, said in a statement. "Now, just four months after BT's acquisition of Ribbit, the platform is live, and we are open for business with developers, systems integrators, and yes, other carriers."
Ribbit is sponsoring a contest to encourage developers to come up with new applications for its platform. The company is offering $100,000 in prize money for the most innovative Ribbit integrations across five general categories. The categories are: business productivity; media, entertainment, and marketing; social networking; carrier integration; and next-gen innovation.
"The telcos have lost control of the device. When you start building genuinely agnostic services, when you don't know the target device, it requires a different form creativity," he said. It's a move from closed networks to more open software platforms, and part of BT's transformation from a telco to a platform-based, software-driven services company. "Everything we do at BT is embeddable as workflow for customers. Voice is a feature embedded in the workflow," he added.
Rangaswami's vision explains why his company plunked down $105 million to acquire Ribbit this week. (see Techmeme). Ribbit's software allows developers to integrate voice features to Web applications, such as Salesforce.com, Facebook, and the iPhone. In the coming weeks, BT will integrate Ribbit with its 21CN network, which is available in more than 120 countries.
Ribbit Applications
Ribbit built a set of voice APIs that only make sense as part of a global network services company like BT. "The market moved from voice as a silo to voice as applications, and is still stuck there. Voice as a feature is our starting point," Rangaswami said.
He is depending on what he called the "magic of the community" to "see things we cannot" and innovate with BT's development platform and network. "We have become background catalysts, building better tools for the channel and developers," he added.
"The value only comes if you have applications that are used in an all-IP environment, and you can deploy services at the touch of a button rather than fiddling around with jumpers and cables. Ribbit is Silicon Valley's first phone company where you fiddle with software, not cables," Rangaswami said. "The story is not about cost reduction per se or telling customers what they must do to change or a backplane move. It's about innovation. The primitives of the network are exposed."
The fact that Ribbit is located in the midst of Silicon Valley, and a hotbed of developers, was also a factor in BT's decision to buy the company.
GigaOm's Om Malik likes the vision, but is skeptical about BT's ability to execute.
The 21CN plan included a platform that allowed developers to embed voice into Internet applications. That platform still exists, but one wonders if anyone is using it. So perhaps they had to go out and buy what is essentially a Class Five switch with a pretty Internet interface.
Ribbit, as an independent company was able to get some--not a lot--of developer interest. I am not sure how BT is going to do that. It is after a telecom operator, who wants to operate like an Internet company. Sure, in a circus you can make a dog walk on two legs as well.
As Malik implies, Rangaswami's next challenge will be getting the developer community to adopt his voice-as-a-feature-at-the-edge-of-the-network approach. It won't be difficult to convince people that voice features, like social networking, should be available to any Web site or application. Competing against Google's forthcoming Android, the iPhone, and other developer platforms will be trickier. As Rangaswami said in a video about the deal, "Execution is the name of the game now."
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