Web Startups Offer Telephony Relief to Small Businesses

Third-party application providers are talking up their Web-based telephony options that work with a company's existing infrastructure -- a viable option for SMBs that don't have the budget to rip-and-replace what they already have.Speaking at the Emerging Communications Conference in Silicon Valley, executives from Web startups Ribbit and Toktumi spoke about how they're helping small businesses combine their traditional telephony systems with Web-based networks and protocols to enable in-office telephony, fixed-mobile convergence and collaboration.

Ribbit lets developers tie voice from any Flash-enabled browser to the public switched telephone network and VoIP networks. It also offers a service that transforms any physical phone into a virtual device that can be used in Web environments, plus an application that integrates small-business telephony systems with Salesforce.com.

For its part, Toktumi, a voice-based PC-and-phone integrator, is targeting very small businesses (less than 10 employees) with software that adds the power and functionality of large-enterprise telephony systems to small-company desk phones.InformationWeek