Ifbyphone buys Cloudvox, lets clients build their own open-source telephony apps

Ifbyphone, a company offering a suite of its own web-based voice and phone applications, announced today that it has acquired Cloudvox to give its customers the tools they need to build their own open-source, customized phone applications to fit their business needs. No financial deals were disclosed.

The deal gives Ifbyphone an open API it can use to scale its voice application offerings. Only months old, Cloudvox provides web developers (even less experienced ones) with all the pieces they need to build working web telephony services, much like “Asterisk in the cloud.” At the same time, Ifbyphone will still equip them with the technology they need to deploy and scale their newly-built applications.

Seattle-based Cloudvox (now said to be ‘powered by Ifbyphone’ on its web site) is unique in that it works with a diversity of systems. Developers can build web telephony services to work with any existing software, whether it uses Python, Ruby, PHP, Java, C# or HTTP. They can still build on all the features they need to control every phase of a call with only a few clicks of a mouse — and without adding any new equipment or infrastructure.

Ifbyphone CEO Irv Shapiro says that Cloudvox will give his company’s customers the low-cost, internet-based telephone services they need to streamline sales and marketing communications. Right now, it seems like it’s squarely targeting enterprise customers.

The deal between Ifbyphone and Cloudvox is further evidence that voice services are trending toward an internet-based future. BT’s recent Ribbit buy, and O2/Telefonica’s decision to snap up VoIP company Jajah (one of Ifbyphone’s direct competitors) go to show that even the big traditional operators see this happening slowly but surely.

Ifbyphone, based in Skokie, Ill., has raised $9.1 million to date and is backed by Apex Venture Partners, Origin Ventures and Bluecrest Capital Finance.