Telephony 2.0

Earlier this week VoIP and apps platform vendor Broadsoft announced the winners of its voice mashup developer contest. 

I’ve written about Broadsoft’s mashup platform a handful of times (1, 2, 3) in the past, so they were kind enough to contact me to be a judge in the contest. I’ve been skeptical about the value of voice mashups, particularly on the wireline side (it certainly seems Android0 and iPhone-style mobile apps will be where the action is).

Did my time as a judge change my mind? Yes and no. Read on below.

THE FINALISTS

The finalists came down to six apps. Four of them provided access via a PC or mobile phone to VoIP soft clients/IM apps as well as slick check box-style control of calling features, like call forwarding, call notification, call waiting, voice mail management, etc.

I actually liked an app called VFX Manager, which (somewhat embarrassingly) didn’t make the final top three.

It was a very simple PC app that disappeared to the system tray but provided easy access to all the ways you’d want to control your phone. I know if I had an app like this, I’d use it. That’s why it got one of my top votes.

What all of these phone control apps had in common was that they took very difficult to control — but simple to understand phone features — and made them much easier to manage.

Most of us work at PCs all day, so using a simple app as an interface is not only natural, but preferable. Many times, I have occasion to forward my phone but as often as not forget to do it because it just isn’t convenient.

The other notable aspect of these apps was that they came in a few different desktop styles, including a slick Adobe Air application, called QuickSet, that came in third place in the contest (see the interface below).

THE TOP TWO

While call control apps are nice, the top two applications succeeded in doing quite a bit more. Most importantly, they were focused on business process and not just telephony feature control.

The runner up app was called Project ARCTIC, and was created by New Zealand carrier WorldXchange. It dealt with the less than thrilling — but mission-critical — process of accounts receivable. Yes, A/R. You certainly don’t see many Web mashups targeting accounting functions (more on that later).

The application leveraged access to the Broadsoft platform APIs and Voice XML scripts on the back-office side of the business to deal with delinquent accounts. Before receiving a formal letter, the system automatically sent out a click-to-call message alerting the customer to the problem and offering to transfer them to an agent to deal with it.

The ultimate winner was dubbed Disaster Dispatcher, written by Thomas Howe — with whom we did a podcast long ago and who is sitting on a panel at our upcoming Telephony Live event. The application integrated Twitter, RSS feeds and the Broadworks API to create a one-window communications tool for emergency operators. The look and feel was a bit like a small call center, but communications spanned the Web and telephony worlds, with status updates provided via Twitter and click-to-call (via cell phone, more likely to be reachable during an emergency) handling the voice side. The RSS feeds kept the dispatchers up to date with external news on the emergency.

Thomas is perhaps the most vocal advocate and a leading practitioner developing so-called communications-enabled business process apps today. Disaster Dispatcher showed what’s possible with open telephony APIs and links out to the Web world.

THE VERDICT

So as I mentioned in this post (and hinted out in the headline), my top vote went to a call control app. I thought it was the cleanest, clearest example of what could be done with the APIs. I * did * pick Disaster Dispatcher and Project ARCTIC in my top three, so I wasn’t far off the pace.

What are the implications here?

In the end, it’s hard to argue that the two apps that would have the most business impact came in as the top two. They didn’t sport the slickest interfaces nor do the fanciest jobs. Rather they used telephony APIs to support business processes — what is likely to be the bread-and-butter of the voice mashup development world. It’s not sexy nor consumer-oriented.These sorts of apps will never fill-up an App Store. That will make the ultimate success of voice mashups hard to measure.

But they hold the potential to improve key business processes while also driving voice usage and integrating the world of the Web. And more than anything, they’ll help service providers help their customers — and that’s a winning proposition.

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