Ambitions remain high as BT's Ribbit goes 2.0

Ribbit looks to be developing momentum by continuing to expand its ecosystem – which it claims already includes more than 6000 developers – to also include a large group of systems integrator partners, announced this week. The company is also planning to soon detail a strategy to make its application platform available to work on other carrier networks – even beyond BT -- a move that company founder Crick Waters touched on at the recent TelephonyLive conference in Chicago. That move is intriguing because, while many service providers have been working to build open application platforms, few have been as visible as Ribbit.

Ribbit has also begun to integrate its platform with additional applications beyond Salesforce.com, for instance, announcing integration with Oracle’s CRM On Demand app in September. Other voice-enabling application partnerships are in the works, the company said. Among the list of app vendors the company confirmed it is working with: Microsoft, SAP, NetSuite, Kana, Intuvo, Veetro and Dovarri.

Together, those moves signal a broader strategy than just becoming an application provider on the BT network – a vision that both Ribbit and BT signaled even as the acquisition was announced. In late September, BT surprised the telecom world by shutting down its own, much-touted Web21C SDK program and replacing it with the Ribbit platform

Up first, though, is Ribbit for Salesforce 2.0, launched by the BT business unit at this week’s Salesforce.com Dreamforce user conference.

The initial version of Ribbit for Salesforce focused on enabling mobile communications to the Web-based sales automation platform, leveraging Ribbit’s own voice-over-IP network in conjunction with a user’s mobile phone for outbound click-to-call, inbound visual voice mail and other voice-Web integrated features.