Wow. The business power of a great acquisition depends on both its ability to add value to both parties, and its creation of a new entity where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Here’s a great example, fresh off the press, of an acquisition that can change the game of cloud telephony.
Today, Ifbyphone, a provider of cloud telephony, announced their definitive agreement to acquire Cloudvox, a technology start-up offering open source telephony apps.
Let’s first take a look at the power of the new entity.
Ifbyphone + Cloudvox
According to the press release:
“The addition of Cloudvox positions Ifbyphone as the only cloud telephony provider that enables customers to rent a phone-based application, integrate with an existing Ifbyphone app, or build a custom app. Cloudvox lets developers automate phone calls using their own software – code they write and control.”
Shapiro explained these three levels to TMCnet’s blogger as follows:
With the Cloudvox acquisition Ifbyphone can now offer 3 scenarios for applications:
- Own the application(s)
- Rent the application(s)
- Have developers integrate or build application(s) from scratch
While many competitors offer one of the above three services, Ifbyphone will now be positioned as the only cloud telephony provider offering businesses all three alternatives. “By acquiring Cloudvox, we’re sending a message to businesses of every size: If you’re interested in using telephone applications to automate sales, marketing, business processes, and Web applications, we’re the place to start,” says Shapiro in the press release.
Saunderslog, in covering the story, explains the value of this new creation by quoting Shapiro as saying, “The combination of Cloudvox and Ifbyphone provide an Amazon EC2 style of environment to developers building telephone applications.”
In addition to the new differentiated competitive advantage in the scope of services offered, the marriage between these two companies combines Ifbyphone’s “proprietary” building blocks with Cloudvox’s open source Asterisk AGI and AMI applications platform, to capture the best of both worlds.
Now let’s take a look at the value of this acquisition for each of the parties.
Ifbyphone
Gigaom expands on this aspect of the deal:
“The move gives Ifbyphone a scalable back end for its voice applications that’s accessible via an open API. Cloudvox offers “phone building blocks” that provide basic telephony functions such as making and receiving calls and presenting interactive voice response menus as well as performing more advanced tasks. Ifbyphone, which automates traditional and Internet phone calls through pre-built apps, plans to use the acquisition to enable businesses to leverage their existing Asterisk apps and bring them to scale through Ifbyphone’s infrastructure.”
The acquisition of Cloudvox solves Ifbyphone’s previous need to release customized building blocks to meet their customers’ needs. With Cloudvox’s Asterisk open source API platform, much like “Asterisk in the cloud,” developers can easily build their own apps in a variety of languages and familiar code.
Cloudox
Troy Davis, a Cloudvox Co-Founder, explained, “Cloudvox is the most practical way to launch comprehensive phone services, and with Ifbyphone’s infrastructure and experience, we’ve created the best cloud model in the industry.”
Related posts:
- Cloudvox Launches Open Source Phone API
- The Winning Fruits of An Acquisition
- Find the Location of Any Phone Number with Cloudvox
- New Screencasts Teach the Basics of Cloud Telephony
- Open-Source Telephony Resources
