CHICAGO, Jan. 20 /PRNewswire/ -- Ifbyphone, Inc., a leader in cloud telephony, today entered into a definitive agreement to acquire privately held Cloudvox.

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In addition to its suite of self-service Web configured and highly customizable phone applications, the acquisition positions Ifbyphone as an industry-leading application developer platform.

"By acquiring Cloudvox, we're sending a message to businesses of every size: If you're interested in using telephone applications to automate sales, marketing, business processes, and Web applications, we're the place to start," said Irv Shapiro, CEO of Ifbyphone. "Businesses can rent an existing application from us and tightly integrate their business with that app. Or they can now use Cloudvox to build their own portable, open application from scratch and still take advantage of our cloud infrastructure and phone expertise."

The addition of Cloudvox positions Ifbyphone as the only cloud telephony provider that enables customers to rent a phone-based application, integrate with an existing Ifbyphone app, or build a custom app. Cloudvox lets developers automate phone calls using their own software - code they write and control.

Cloudvox leverages the industry-leading Asterisk open-source phone server, and is similar to "Asterisk in the cloud."

While Asterisk is quite powerful, creating a reliable, scalable, feature-rich phone platform is difficult and capital-intensive. Cloudvox is compatible with existing Asterisk applications and software libraries; further, it is scalable, deployed in a carrier-grade environment, and simple for developers to use.

Cloudvox is well known among developers for its unique, standards-based solution. A hosted service, Cloudvox bridges Web apps with phone services, enabling developers to place, receive, and control phone calls from their own software (including Python, Ruby, PHP, Java, C#, and simple HTTP/JSON).

"Cloudvox handles all of the telecom features, giving developers complete control of the phone call and their app," said Troy Davis, Cloudvox Co-Founder. "Cloudvox is the most practical way to launch comprehensive phone services, and with Ifbyphone's infrastructure and experience, we've created the best cloud model in the industry."

Financial details of the acquisition were not disclosed. For more information about Ifbyphone's Cloud Telephony applications, including IVR, Voice Broadcasting, Call Tracking, and Virtual Call Center, visit www.ifbyphone.com. To learn about or use Cloudvox, visit www.cloudvox.com.

About Ifbyphone

Ifbyphone provides businesses a suite of phone automation services to enhance customer communications, increase sales, and lower costs. With Ifbyphone's easy-to-use hosted services and tools, marketers, developers and business users can quickly create telephony systems to drive customer retention and acquisition. For more information, visit www.ifbyphone.com.

SOURCE Ifbyphone, Inc.