Developers have never been so hot in telecoms. They must be spoilt for choice given the numerous programs out there enticing them with high level voice APIs. On the other hand these high level APIs across multiple vendor platforms could give developers an opportunity to easily scale across those platforms. However I do think that too many companies are getting on the bandwagon. Particularly when the monetization of the apps developed is still an issue.
This particular announcement from Sangoma, a VoIP hardware company, is indicative of how vendors that have nothing much to do with developer programs, want to drive some marketing from this industry trend. Sangoma is trying to set up a developer network in order to ….. as I understand it ….. drive some qualified web traffic to its site.
A developer program would help a service provider or someone like Broadsoft or Freeswitch that provide the underlying VoIP application server and the APIs to develop apps on top of those platforms. Sangoma, however, will just set up a developer network and act as a facilitator for potential business between its customers and developers.
My first impression after having gone through the press release was that Sangoma is probably planning to offer something like an extended Freeswitch platform and that is why the company is enlisting some developers for now. Or perhaps the company is planning to create a marketplace for carriers and enterprises to select readily integrated apps off, say, Freeswitch. Not really. Sangoma is not recruiting developers for itself per se, but for it’s client base as mentioned above, “and to help give back to the community.”
Sangoma also has an SS7 gateway product. It might have instead been a better idea to extend that platform for app development. The SS7 product was actually developed by the company in collaboration with some Open Source developers.
Trying to leverage the Voice 2.0 trend just to drive some web traffic does not sound like a great marketing idea.