Telstra has revealed the addition of almost one million new mobile services in the six months to December 2011, but Sensis revenues plummeted 24 percent in 12 months.
Unlike Skype, the Ribbit platform requires no separate downloads, as it is currently delivered through Adobe Flash technology, something that is already installed on 98% of computers worldwide.
Of course there will be a small download of the Flash application, but this happens in the background in a way that is essentially almost immediate and transparent, unlike the actual download and setup that needs to take place when installing dedicated voice and IM software such as Skype.
That said, anyone using Skype has many options to use it to make and receive calls away from a computer – Skype clients exist for mobile phones, cordless Skype phones that also connect to the PSTN network are sold in stores, and Skype has even created its own dedicated 3G Skypephone, now sold by the 3 Mobile global telco.
Ribbit is primarily delivered through the web browser, but as it can connect to Skype or regular phones too, it promises to open up the world of telecommunications even further than Skype has already managed to do.
Ribbit say they are giving their developers “unprecedented access to our technology, through the Ribbit API and allowing them to innovate at will. Our business is built more like a software company than a phone company. Rather than thinking we can do it all ourselves, we are counting on our developers to create the next generation communications solutions we have all been waiting for”.
Another example of the communications backend enabling telephony anywhere is a fully virtual iPhone, developed using Adobe’s AIR interface, that worked perfectly but for one problem – the virtual telephony app didn’t integrate into any existing telephony software, such as Skype.
But by using Ribbit’s technology, the AIR iPhone is now fully operational with a telephony app that can make and receive calls just as you’d expect, right from the virtual iPhone, something you can see for yourself at Ribbit’s showcase of comms technologies.
Ribbit’s creators clearly hope that developers will start embedding all kinds of interesting telephony apps everywhere, and that they’ll start multiplying like rabbits.
David Bass
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