The Smartphone's Missing Business Brain
By Greg Goldfarb, GM Software as a Service, Ribbit

Over the past 18 months we've heard two resounding themes from business applications and services customers.

1. Transition toward on-demand business applications
2. Transition toward the mobile phone as the primary mode of voice communication

These factors have been formative drivers for Ribbit Corporation. There are a number of solutions that push data from web applications to the mobile device. However, we've discovered a fundamental gap - linking business interactions inherent to the mobile device into the web based business process. Voice communication was the natural place to start as it is the most pervasive and the critical application of the mobile phone. Despite the increasing usage of email and text messaging, voice remains the richest and often the most convenient form of communication.

With the emergence of customizable software as a service platforms, such as Salesforce.com, businesses are empowered to tailor their processes to drive productivity. In this context, it's notable that mission critical mobile voice communication, such as voicemails, call records, and call connections, are still controlled by wireless carriers with little to no opportunity for business workflow integration. Current mobile industry practices impose everyday productivity blockers, such as customers not being able to leave messages if your mobile voicemail box is full. It's time for a change.

Bridging Telephony and Web Innovation

Ribbit was created to break the stalemates created by traditional industry silos and practices. Ribbit is the result of a group of Silicon Valley phone and Web veterans coming together, in a distinctly new way, to create a distinctly new company. When we started Ribbit we asked ourselves, what would happen if you applied Silicon Valley thinking to a next generation Phone Company?

We came up with three things you'd need to do differently:

• Team - Ribbit is comprised of traditional telephony experts, "Voice 2.0" experts as well as various web development, social media and infrastructure experts.
• Technology - At the core of Ribbit's technology is the Ribbit SmartSwitch™, a sophisticated multi-protocol soft-switch that bridges the worlds of traditional telephony with next generation networks and protocols.
• Business Innovation - Ribbit is an open platform for telephony and web innovation. Unlike any other phone company, we are giving our 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.

Boosting Sales Productivity

Our first business application, Ribbit for Salesforce, enables a new wave of sales process productivity. We saw a ripe opportunity in this arena as sales professionals are increasingly reliant on both Salesforce.com CRM and mobile voice communication. Ribbit for Salesforce is an easy to use web service that links mobile voice communications to Salesforce. Mobile calls, voice messages, voice memos, and text transcriptions automatically flow into Salesforce, so you can play, read, store, search, share, and act on voice communications from your customer relationship management (CRM) application. It works with your existing mobile number and without any software downloads. As a result early customers are connecting faster with key stakeholders and increasing customer intelligence in their CRM business process. The feature summary below highlights the capabilities we've introduced to bridge the pervasive gap between mobility and business workflow.

From Salesforce CRM:

• Messages in your workflow - Voice messages are automatically organized in Salesforce along with the text conversion so you can read them at a glance. Attach messages to any record, or share with the team. Search for messages by key words. Unlimited storage and control means no more wasting time, scribbling notes, or forced message deletion.
• Voice memo updates - Record a memo by phone and read it later in Salesforce. A time saving alternative to manually entering notes.
• Calling within your workflow - Take and make calls in Salesforce with an online clone of your mobile phone. Dial from Salesforce contacts and get automatic logs. Uses your caller ID but not your mobile minutes. Great when it's easy to get online but you can't get a cell signal.

From your mobile phone:

• Easy message access - Receive SMS alerts and emails for each voicemail. Dial into our smart voicemail service to access all your messages.
• Faster Connections - Instantly return calls from messages, send messages, or even rescue calls midstream while people are leaving you a voicemail.

"Automatically getting voice messages with text conversion in Salesforce saves lots of time and puts more information in CRM. Ribbit is filling a critical missing link in our team's productivity and business workflow," said Tadd Tellepsen, Vice President at Tellepsen Builders.

In summary, the Ribbit for Salesforce capabilities enable a new wave of sales productivity by:

1. Improving Customer responsiveness.
2. Maximizing selling time vs. time spent on sales process overhead.
3. Increasing the flow of customer information into the business process.
4. Improving management visibility of field activities.

App Development Opportunity with the Ribbit Platform

Ribbit for Salesforce is built on our publicly available API and is just the start of a new class of business workflow applications. We've engaged a community of over 3,000 developers creating "voiceware", which bridges voice communication and web applications. The applications under development span both consumer and enterprise innovations. We welcome you to join the movement! To learn more about our developer program please visit us at www.ribbit.com.

About Ribbit
Ribbit is working with the best and brightest technology and business leaders to start and develop Silicon Valley's first phone company. Our mission is to "liberate voice from the device, and integrate it into the workflow of life, both business and personal." By providing a world-class telephone carrier infrastructure -- and the first open platform for Internet and voice developers -- we are helping to unleash innovation across the entire telephony marketplace, from the development of leading-edge consumer voice services to the integration of voice with the world's best business applications.

Ribbit headquarters are located in Mountain View, CA. Ribbit has received investment from Alsop-Louie Partners, Allegis Capital and KPG Ventures. For more information about Ribbit, please visit www.ribbit.com or contact Greg Goldfarb @ , or Crick Waters @ .