Thomas Howe

We’ve been working on this one for a while.

Today, I’m pleased to announce that our company, along with our partner Sylantro, is sponsoring a Telephony Mashup Contest as part of the Sylantro Global Summit 2007. This new contest provides a stage for developers to demonstrate their creative skills using emerging telephony technologies such as PBX, IVR, VoIP and Web Service APIs. Sylantro is the worldwide leader in hosted VoIP deployments, with customers including such industry giants as AT&T, Qwest, China Unicom, and Swisscom, and next generation service providers such as Covad, and Lightyear Network Solutions. Sylantro Global Summit 2007 attendees include CTO/CEOs of the world’s top phone companies (ILECs, PTTs, IXCs, CLECs) and other service providers. The finalists will have the opportunity to pitch their ideas to an audience of companies with hundreds of millions of customers. The winner will be chosen by a panel of senior executive judges among the contest sponsors.

The first round of the contest is open to all developers. We encourage individuals or teams to identify themselves and register by September 7th so that questions can be answered early in the process and some orientation can be provided on the Sylantro APIs. Mashup submissions must be submitted by September 20th when finalists will be chosen. The contest is timed to conclude on the final day of the Sylantro Global Summit held September 30th through October 2nd where finalists will demonstrate their mashups at the conference.

Finalists will be judged with a 50/50 weight based on presentation of technology and a business use case. Applicants must use the Sylantro API. Use of other suggested API’s including Voxeo, Amazon Web Services, and OutboundMessaging.com are optional. Applicants must make a case that their application makes businesses faster, more efficient, or create happier customers.