BT has acquired telephony software company Ribbit in a $105m (£53m) cash deal, pitting the telecoms giant against Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android software development kits.

Ribbit’s Amphibian open platform allows developers to integrate various voicemail, speech-to-text and other telephony features into Web 2.0 applications, including social networking sites.

The company also offers a voice-to-text software add-on for the Salesforce.com on-demand customer relationship management application.

Ribbit is a private company founded in 2006 by venture capitalist firms.