mashups

BroadSoft acquiring Sylantro - The impact

Pete Wylie — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 13:45:45 -0500

In a major consolidation of the VoIP application server space, BroadSoft Inc. is expected to publicly announce its acquisition of Sylantro Systems before Christmas -- if not sooner. Multiple sources with insight into BroadSoft and Sylantro say it's a done deal, with former Sylantro employees conducting a privately-held wake on a LinkedIn discussion.

At BroadSoft, the acquisition is being viewed as a major boon with great respect being given to Sylantro's past accomplishments in the marketplace, as well as its current brand strength. The company will gain 50 new customers from Sylantro, including AT&T, Qwest, Swisscom and NuVox. BroadSoft executives describe Sylantro as a "formidable competitor" for the past decade and say they are "fortunate" to be able to acquire such a strong brand.

Terms of the deal appear to have been quite favorable. Sources say BroadSoft believes it will be able to generate positive cash flow from the acquisition in 2009, a feat it attributes to the consideration and terms of the merger.

Others "in the know" on the transaction say that Sylantro was running out of cash with no means to raise additional capital. A shotgun wedding with BroadSoft was a way to save jobs for some employees and spare existing customers the uncertainty of a bankruptcy filing.

Sylantro's R&D office in Bangalore, India, is listed as a "key asset" in the acquisition. In addition, BroadSoft expects to keep a (smaller) office in Sylantro's Silicon Valley HQ and keep parts of the sales organization.

Doug Mohney contributed to this report.

For more:
- We don't think it's a rumor anymore, but we do not have official confirmation from either company. RUMOR MILL: BroadSoft buys Sylantro

Covergence launches Session Manager VoIP middleware

Pete Wylie — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 15:23:51 -0500

Covergence, the Maynard, Mass.-based VoIP software solutions firm, announced its Session Manager product. The Covergence Session Manager (CSM) is middleware that can connect with many different vendors' PBXes to virtualize a company's voice assets for integration into web applications and cost reduction.

CSM moves routing, control, interoperability and monitoring out of individual PBXs and into the manager for centralized handling using IP and VoIP. It also boasts Web 2.0 capabilities that allow for the integration of voice and presence into application and is compatible with Google Gadgets and IBM sMash for the design of customized applications without technical experience.

"The CSM eliminates PSTN charges, consolidates PBXs and allows for web developers to embed voice easily in applications," said Rod Hodgman, vice president of marketing for Covergence. "We're targeting the Global 1000 companies with the Session Manager, because some of them have hundreds of PBXs in many different locations, often with different vendors. The Session Manager takes those hundreds of islands of communications, puts them all on IP, and integrates them into a cohesive, unified system."

CSM will be delivered in three different packaging models, and is available both as a hardware appliance and as a software-only application.

For more:
- see the Covergence information about Session Manager here

IntelePeer gets $18M

Doug Mohney — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 21:01:18 -0500

What does IntelePeer do that all the other "I can make a phone call within a web app" companies don't? Whatever it is, it seems to be worth $18 million in third round venture money lead by Vantage Point.

According to Venture Beat, IntelePeer is sorta like Ribbit. The company has its AppworX open communications platform and a voice peering grid network (OK, Ribbit didn't have a voice peering grid, me thinks) so app developers have the ability to create rich media services while using IntelePeer's hosted services to save money.

IntelePeer is calling its offering a CaaS - Communications as a Service. Customers get to tap into the combo of Web 2.0 and Voice 2.0 capabilities on top of the company's carrier-grade telecommunications voice peering network, and there's a network peering grid infrastructure that reportedly handles "billions" of voice minutes per year and has direct connections with more 50 service providers around the globe.

Don't think Ribbit had the whole voice grid peering thing going...

Anyway, IntelePeer claims Microsoft, WebEx, BT, AT&T, Verizon, Facebook and TMCnet as customers, with the main hook so far being a click-to-call feature within various web apps.

Formerly named VoEx, other investors include EDF Ventures, Kennet Venture Partners, and NorthCap Partners.

For more:
- IntelePeer gets the attention of VentureBeat. Post.

Doing and knowing

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 10:36:57 -0400

by Thomas Howe

Today's service providers are real "doers." From business model to world view, carriers see the world in terms of what they can do for their customers. They excel at doing things like connecting two phones, sending a text message or creating a conference. Larger operators do things like write custom telephone applications or integrate enterprise software into call centers. In theory and in practice, today's service providers work off of a single business model : take a rare thing, and charge the subscriber for "doing" something with it. For years, this has been a lucrative path, and still widely is, but the tide has changed, primarily because the "doing" has gotten easier. Open source software, multiple transport paths such as cable, fiber and the myriad wireless options all contribute to an exponential rise in the number of service providers able to "do" something for businesses and consumers. This increased supply adds pricing pressure to providers, forcing them to seek better approaches and business models.

Tomorrow's service providers will rely on a very different sort of model: "knowing." Instead of generating value by "doing" things for people, they will generate value by "knowing" things that they learn by "doing" things for people. Focused on data collection, the carriers will be experts at your social network, because your real social network exists in your call detail records. They will be knowledgeable about where you spend your time, because they can track your cell phone. They will know what sorts of TV shows you watch, because they deliver video to your handset, or, because of quad play, they provide your home TV service as well. Unlike "doing", which is rather easily replicated, "knowing" is nearly impossible to replicate. Sure, a new carrier can start to collect your personal data, but they cannot recreate your past data. That sort of data is safe and sound in the walls of your current operator, and it's not going anywhere, and one day - because the data isn't moving - neither will you.

What sorts of things can a service provider know? The obvious ones are personal information and context. The trusted billing relationship between carrier and customer provides information like address, age, family structure, gender and nationality. Only the carriers can really determine our life context: where we are, who we talk to, if we are in a moving car... STL Partners identifies seven different categories of digital assets a carrier has access to, including information about relationships, interactions and devices. All of these assets are examples of things that carriers "know" - all things that are difficult to reproduce and all things are that are immensely valuable.

The problem? Privacy. At this point, you hear the privacy objections immediately. Here's what's missing from that: permission. There are all sorts of times when users gladly give up their personal information, and there's no reason to think that this is going to be different here. When consumers see giving personal information up as a benefit, and they're asked for it, they will generally give it. Location based Apple iPhone apps are a great example: when I want to use Yelp to find a place to eat, and it asks to use my current location, I'm annoyed that it even asked. I'd rather it just do that automatically. The value I find from finding a great place to eat far outweighs my concerns about who knows where I am. One day, the carriers might power the Barnes and Noble member card service. For a 10 percent discount on my purchases, I will allow the bookstore access to my data. As I walk into the store, the carrier will notify the shop keeper that I've entered, and send coupons to my phone based on my past purchases. Maybe they know my wife bought this book yesterday, or suggest one that a Facebook friend bought last week. As I walk up to the counter, my smart device will automatically pay for my purchase - no need to whip out credit card or member card. For me, the consumer, it's all good. For the carrier, it's better than good - it's the final answer to the dump pipe problem.

Thomas Howe is a long-time telecom consultant, writer and speaker who is the CEO of the Thomas Howe Company, providing expertise in improving the business process with real-time communications. His website is at http://www.thomashowe.com

Ifbyphone mashes call data to Google Analytics

Doug Mohney — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 11:57:58 -0400

In the latest "Gee, that's cool" Voice 2.0 mashup, Chicago-based Ifbyphone has created a mashup to integrate direct response call date with web advertising info from Google Analytics to enable customers to gauge the overall effectiveness of a lead-generation campaign.

The "Marketing 2.0" (ugh!) mashup creates a pseudo web page that is dynamically linked to a "Smart Telephone Number" assigned to an Ifbyphone's customer account. Each time the phone rings, a page view is automatically counted by Google. Advertisers run the reports on the web page hits and therefore get the number of times the assigned phone number has rung.

Since it's all integrated under Google Analytics, marketing wonks can add up website and click stream clicks in the same report with phone call reports; each phone number can also be associated with a Google tracking value for source, content, campaign, term and medium.

For more:
- Read the Ifbyphone release on the new Google analytics mashup

Mixed Returns on Voice APIs

Doug Mohney — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 10:22:26 -0400

Can you attract customers and make a buck by providing an applications programming interface (API) for your telephony platform? Providing an API is necessary, says GigaOm, but it's not a ringer for financial success.

APIs provide the tools for voice mashups, making it easy for service providers and independent developers to combine voice with data and applications across multiple systems. Voice mashups can save money and help enforce business process quality and consistency, but an API isn't a solution and doesn't necessarily make money.

Lots of voice API-based companies are in business, but they're not generating a ton of minutes or money. For example, Jakuda and parent company NetworkIP make about $150 million in total; API Jakuda may only contribute a paltry $1.2 million to the bottom line.

APIs have a lot of potential, but telephony companies need to focus on broader business plans that take into account what customers want and how to solve their problems rather than see the release of an API as a simple check box on the list to financial profitability.

For more:
- GigaOm asks if there is money in Voice APIs

Related articles:
AOL opens up, Yahoo outsources PSTN interfaces
Introducing Telco 2.0 - A Business Primer

SPOTLIGHT: VoIP Industry Defies Investors, MVNOs Drive Mobile VoIP, Developers Drive Open

Doug Mohney — Tue, 06 May 2008 17:20:51 -0400

In a trifecta of reports released this week, iLocus sees boom times for VoIP in spite of investor cold-feet, MVNOs driving Mobile VoIP, and developers pushing open source solutions over more hip Voice 2.0 mash-up solutions.

There's been a 67 percent increase in VoIP access service licenses and a 35 percent increase in VoIP traffic over last year. Carriers seem to have no choice, and must build out IP infrastructure or risk becoming irrelevant. Losses in landlines are pushing wireline operators to expand mobile operations while mobile operators want to leverage fixed broadband networks for voice offload (i.e. femtocells) or "over the top" services.

SIP trunking is getting kudos for enabling other services, including Voice 2.0 services hosted in the core and peer-to-peer VoIP in enterprise. Europe is outpacing the rest of the world in VoIP penetration, while in the U.S. cable companies lead the way – for now. Broadband offerings from AT&T and Verizon could end up shifting the balance back to the telcos in the long run.

All this VoIP technology is enabling MVNOs to offer Mobile VOIP solutions, with over two-thirds expecting to have a mobile VoIP offering in place by 2010. Current estimates peg 450,000 paying mobile VoIP subscribers worldwide with a forecast of that number to grow to 2.4 million by the end of 2008.

Voice 2.0 developers like SIP over all the other web service APIs, according to iLocus, and 72 percent of them prefer to work with open source telephony platforms like Asterisk and offer services directly to the consumer. Working with directly with telcos is the second most favored option, rather than going to vendors like Microsoft or Sylantro.

For more:
- iLocus blogs on VoIP industry investment, MVNO and Mobile VOIP, and Voice 2.0 growth

MetaSwitch Makes Mashups

Doug Mohney — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 22:11:32 -0400

MetaSwitch has announced it is demonstrating mashups using its CommPortal subscriber interface with iGoogle and Salesforce.com, providing click-to-dial experiences with both websites. The solutions will enable service providers to integrate CommPortal directly into both websites, allowing users to access click-to-dial, contact integration, visual voicemail and other features.

Demonstrations are taking place this week during MetaSwitch's annual user forum event and put the company into a crowd of softswitch-based vendors that have announced mashup solutions, including BroadSoft and Sylantro. Other companies with mashup capabilities include Digium's SwitchVox SMB IP PBX and NewStep's CSN converged communications platform. Typical objectives around mashups are to enable service providers to quickly develop new applications at reduced cost while adding more revenue-producing services.

The iGoogle/CommPortal mashup includes an iGoogle gadget to enable click-to-dial and a remote click-to-dial option that allows subscribers to utilize the function on their mobile phones. Users can also integrate their Gmail contracts with the CommPortal interface for some contact management functionality. Salesforce.com gets a click-to-dial function with CommPortal and users get access to a contact-based view of their call history along with access to a visual voicemail application; frankly everyone is doing a Salesforce.com mashup.

For more:
- MetaSwitch Mashup Release

Related Articles:
BroadSoft and JoeDeveloper.NET Mashup Facebook
Converging out of CTIA