BT's purchase of Ribbit highlights an even grander vision for open development. Instead of playing gatekeeper to its network infrastructure, BT wants to give developers access to that infrastructure, so that they can create the devices, services, and applications that will help BT differentiate its network from its competitors... More »

Now, with the acquisition, they're going to become a major player. They have BT's infrastructure and money behind them so they can scale, reach new customers, and offer more services. And they can start getting deals in areas that would have previously been off limits... More »

Ribbit, which introduced itself only last December as Silicon Valley's first phone company, has been bought by one of the world's oldest phone companies for $105m. BT, the UK operator which began as a telegraphic service in 1868, aims to use Ribbit as a platform for services on the national Internet-Protocol 21st century network it has been building, called 21CN... More »

BT, short for British Telecommunications, has acquired Ribbit, a Silicon Valley startup that provides a platform for developers to build voice features into Web applications, for $105 million. Through the acquisition of Ribbit, BT hopes to stay ahead in the telecommunications industry, which it sees as increasingly defined by innovation in software... More »

Ribbit's Amphibian has widely been seen as a rival to GrandCentral, and from what I understand, thoroughly trounces it in terms of features and flexibility. It all makes me wonder what Google's plans are for GrandCentral, or if Ribbit, now that it has a new owner, is going to going be the one to truly integrate the phone and Web?... More »

The two companies [BT and Ribbit] were among the forerunners in this new telecom space, where voice is treated as a feature to be integrated into other applications... More »

With BT's $105 million cash acquisition of Ribbit this week, there's a large focus on the telecom industry and developer community, as this is a major milestone for both ends of the spectrum... The acquisition of Ribbit became a direct response to innovation coming from Apple and Google Android, both of which have a certain reliance on a marketplace where applications can be delivered directly to consumers... More »

For BT, the Ribbit acquisition represents a move toward new business models. It was BT's first acquisition of a pre-revenue start-up and, as a bonus, provides it with a presence in Silicon Valley... More »

Ribbit went looking for telecommunications partners and BT came calling, pressing home the point that the companies shared a lot in common, namely the resolve to let users communicate across devices and networks without being bound to a specific carrier, contract or device manufacturer... More »

Now, with the acquisition, they're going to become a major player. They have BT's infrastructure and money behind them so they can scale, reach new customers, and offer more services. And they can start getting deals in areas that would have previously been off limits... More »

Ribbit has indeed been sold to BT, and as many thought, it wasn't for 55 million. It was for $105 million... which makes complete sense to me... More »

We're excited to see what BT can do with Ribbit. We're thrilled to see a consumer infrastructure play, based on APIs, focused on an unexpected technology (a telephony API instead of say, an ecommerce API) rock out to the tune of $100 million plus... More »

Ribbit is an attractive way for BT to ramp up software revenues. And its soft switch technology (a software-based telephone switch) could start to pop up throughout BT's network, where it would add more flexibility and create cost savings... More »

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... More »

Ribbit will end up running into Google's Android platform and even the iPhone as Apple opens up the device to developers next month. Ribbit differentiates itself by focusing on more than just handsets, but you can expect both Google and Apple to take a page from Ribbit's voiceware platform. What's clear is that the phone is about to take a giant leap into the Web... More »

Ribbit and the iPhone help explain why Silicon Valley is now also known as Smartphone Valley. As mobiles have become more like computers and gained internet connectivity, the Valley's expertise has come into play... More »

Amphibian is a Web-based phone that acts as a command center for all of your incoming and outgoing calls, no matter what number people use. It effectively gives you a universal phone number... More »

Amphibian's promised features - which include the ability to redirect a cell call into Skype, Google Talk, MSN or into a web-based voice mail application - may not seem particularly groundbreaking to anyone familiar with other VoIP-based web services. But viewed as a loss leader for Ribbit's API, Amphibian might be the first product evangelist who actually made the company some money to boot... More »

In a telecoms industry dominated by proprietary software built and controlled by individual network operators, Ribbit presents an alternative using standard Web development tools... Ribbit must move carefully in a market that not only incumbent phone equipment makers Cisco Systems Inc and Avaya Inc covet, but where Google Inc and Microsoft Corp have becoming aggressive players... More »

Ribbit is a remarkable new company, and it knows it: It calls itself "Silicon Valley's first phone company." That sounds like marketing overreach for a young company barely launched, but when you look at what it's doing, you can see why they can get carried away... More »

Commercial version of CRM application turns voice messages into customer data. CRM software services like those from Salesforce.com Inc. can make sales organizations a lot more efficient. Such products organize information so that employees can access everything they need to know about a customer with just a few clicks... More »

After an extraordinarily successful private beta program involving more than 70 businesses of all different sizes, Ribbit -- Silicon Valley's first phone company -- today announced general availability of Ribbit for Salesforce, the first enterprise application to ever link mobile voice communications and Software as a Service (SaaS) business workflow... More »

Ribbit (News - Alert) Corporation, an Internet telephony (VoIP) company, is introducing a new service that merges with Salesforce's on-demand customer relationship management (CRM) software in several ways... More »

Alternative service provider Ribbit this week said it has gone live with a service integrating mobile voice calling and other telephony features into Salesforce.com... More »

A flash of brilliance has combined Ribbit's newly released Amphibian voiceware, with Salesforces to allow SF users to update client information and weld voice and data messages into their work flow... More »

The internet is set to get louder with the talkification of the web. By adding telephone functionality to HTML pages, innovative software developers are about to give your browser a voice... And going one step further is, Ribbit, which calls itself "Silicon Valley's first phone company". According to Ribbit, the walled garden model of the past must make way for a web-based, Flash-enabled world that is not bound to any particular hardware or software... More »

Fresh out of a beta test in which 70 businesses used its inaugural product, Ribbit made its voice application available to all Salesforce.com customers in the United States and added voice automation memos. Ribbit for Salesforce converts voice to text and puts the data right into Salesforce... More »

The Internet telephony startup Ribbit announced Tuesday that one of its initial flagship projects -- an integration with Salesforce -- is now available. The service merges telephony with Salesforce's on-demand CRM (customer relationship management) software in a number of ways... More »

Ribbit has officially released its "voiceware" application that integrates with Salesforce.com. I have been using Ribbit with Salesforce for ~3 weeks now and have been pleased. More important than anything for me was simply getting my voicemail digitally... More »

Once upon a time, in a career far, far away, I worked in marketing communications for a Fortune 500 company. CRM software, such as it was then, consisted mainly of managing your business cards and taking some notes, so it's an industry I've stayed interested in as it's grown and evolved... More »

Ribbit for Salesforce debuted today. First demonstrated at the company's launch last December, Ribbit for Salesforce has been in beta since, at 70 businesses. It's now available to all US customers of salesforce.com, via the salesforce.com AppExchange. Prices start at $25/month with a 30 day free trial... More »

Ribbit, which bills itself as "Silicon Valley's first phone company," has been getting a lot of positive attention. The Mountain View startup has created a platform that allows developers to integrate users' phones into their web applications with minimal fuss. Tomorrow, Ribbit plans to launch Ribbit for Salesforce, the first big showcase of what its platform can do... More »

Ribbit is finally launching (in the official sense) its Salesforce application, enabling users to make phone calls from directly within the application as an integrated feature that aligns with all the other Salesforce contact-management tools... More »

A flash of brilliance has combined Ribbit's newly released Amphibian voiceware, with Salesforces to allow SF users to update client information and weld voice and data messages into their work flow... More »