CallFlow uses accessible and intuitive Interactive Voice Response (easy-IVR) and is the newest addition to BT’s 21st century portfolio of web services, developed to harness the innovation of the applications development community and available to download as Software Delivery Kits (SDKs) from BT.com. The development of web services supports BT’s transformation in to a 21st century software-based services company.
Simplicity and innovation are the driving forces behind BT’s web services which include messaging, conference calls, voice calls, authentication and inbound SMS into applications. For example, the conferencing web service enables conference calls to follow the participant - the calls are initiated automatically rather than by the person dialling in. They enable product and service developers, from one-man programmer start-ups to major enterprises, to integrate their applications with BT’s next generation of voice, broadband and Ethernet services with as little as a single line of code.
The combination of web services, open application programming interfaces (APIs) and the world’s largest all IP network offers developers a service delivery ecosystem that is simpler, faster and cheaper to build traditional communications functionality into their enterprise class or “Web 2.0” applications.
JP Rangaswami, managing director of service design at BT, said: “Innovation in the Web 2.0 era is agile and can originate from anywhere. Our web services allow developers to harness BT’s multi billion dollar investment in the 21st Century Network and focus on developing applications without having to worry about the complexity of how to enable communications. What used to take weeks now takes minutes and with just one line of code, anyone working for a customer or a partner can add voice and messaging into their Web 2.0 applications. It isn’t just developers who gain from BT’s web services and SDK. Ultimately customers benefit from innovative, state of the art telephony enabled applications.”
BT’s Web Services have been positively received by the application development community. SMBLive developed BT Tradespace, a fast growing business community combining the best of a business directory listing with an interactive web presence. The BT SDK was used to build a click to call feature enabling customers to contact traders in their local area. BT Tradespace has enabled nearly 60,000 small businesses to interact with existing and prospective customers online. Matt Howard, CEO at SMBlive, said: “BT’s telephony services allowed SMBLive to quickly and easily develop a voice enabled web application on top of BT’s world class carrier platform. They are an efficient and cost effective way for developers to create ‘communications enabled’ software applications. Other options we investigated had neither the ease of use nor the inherent backing of BT’s high-availability, world-class, carrier infrastructure.”
BT has also partnered with entrepreneurs to extend their applications. Miha Lesjak, CEO of Inova IT, said: “BT's Voice 2.0 services have allowed us to quickly and easily build a semantic click-to-call and calendar-to-conference service that BT are currently preparing for market trial. We are excited about future communications-enabled services we can build.”