VoIP Embraces Open Application Development

Voice 2.0 Growing a Rash of Innovative Offerings

The trend toward data applications and Internet-delivered SaaS is beginning to impact the VoIP landscape, with VoIP platform providers BroadSoft and Sylantro Systems both opening up their environments to third-party developer ecosystems, and companies like Ribbit providing a way to add voice to other applications. The result? An integration of voice and Web 2.0, leading to innovative mash-ups that service providers can use to differentiate themselves.

For its part, BroadSoft has created the Xtended ecosystem, which so far since launching this summer has attracted more than 1,200 registered developers that actively are building applications. At the forefront, according to Wendell Keuneman, director of technical product management at the company, are voice mash-ups with popular business and consumer applications, like Salesforce.com, Facebook and ACT! by Sage. In a nutshell, developers create applications that combine carrier-grade voice and video calling features with Web-based apps, which then can be leveraged by service providers via the Xtended Marketplace.

An example of such a “Voice 2.0” application is the Disaster Dispatcher, which integrates Twitter, BroadSoft’s BroadWorks VoIP platform and RSS feeds to provide a one-window communications tool for emergency operators. By keeping all data in one window, emergency personnel can analyze the collection of information after the emergency to optimize response procedures.

Keuneman said such applications are key to traditional telcos evolving to address the increasingly packetized era of convergence between IT and communications. Consider the changes in the industry: The high-profile success of third-party developer ecosystems for the iPhone and Google Inc.’s Android, Microsoft Corp. embracing the idea of cloud computing and Internet-delivered applications with the launch of Azure, and now a snowballing conversation around telcos moving beyond traditional network services.

“We see our carriers evolving and we're helping them evolve with the technology,” Keuneman noted. “Obviously we’re seeing a demand for the applications, not just voice, video and data, but it's also about the integration of that into the different pockets that are meaningful for the end user. A carrier wants to understand how they can push this out to their customers, how it resonates for them. When people actually see the applications, they can’t help but see the potential for this.”

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