NAR is the organization behind the REALTOR service mark. The package, which is described on this in the REALTOR.org Web site, was designed jointly by the NAR and Ifbyphone. It helps agents optimize their advertising/spending by using call tracking to discover the source of leads. More importantly it uses ifbyphone’s cloud-based voice and call processing resources to serve as a “virtual contact center,” complete with interactive voice response (to screen callers and perform rudimentary call distribution), voice messaging and call forwarding to reach mobile agents.

Since its launch in 2005. IfByPhone has successfully added features and functions to its cloud-based service delivery platform. Eighteen months ago, we posted this story about a three-tiered offering which, at the time, included Telephony API-based voice mashups (for do-it-yourselfers), “Rent-an-App-and-Integrate,” for tech-savvy businesses ready to take a hybrid approach to “Communications-Enabled Business Processes (CEBPs) and “Stage 3″ – which Opus Research now calls “Voice in the Cloud”.

As we noted back then, the competition for Voice in the Cloud comes from the likes of Amazon.com, Salesforce.com, and perhaps Microsoft along with the “pure plays” like West Interactive, Voxeo or Angel.com. It is also becoming a domain where enterprise infrastructure providers (especially Cisco, Alcatel-Lucent, Avaya) are pursuing a “hybrid” approach to supporting multi-channel contact center strategies with “hosted” partners like SpanLink or Teletech. All-in-all, when you include CRM, call tracking, marketing optimization and the other key elements of Conversational Commerce, it is easy to see how “Voice in the Cloud” is foundational to a category of enterprise spending that will exceed $10 billion in 2011.

The first way was the simplest, “Rent-an-App” it is akin to Salesforce.com’s approach to CRM where companies license access to services on a monthly basis.

The second model is “Rent an App and Integrate” with existing business processes. The leader in this model isn’t Salesforce.com, which started out (prior to offering API-based access to SalesCloud or ServiceCloud) by offering access to well-understood CRM functions – like customer records, sales opportunities, call reports, etc.). Instead, Amazon Web Services, a business unit of Amazon.com provided businesses like Target a programmatic interface to e-commerce functions like “check-out” which could be integrated with existing inventory management and “pick, pack and ship” systems.

Acquisition of CloudVox enables IfByPhone to move to the next model, Stage 3. To quote Shapiro, “we’re opening up our infrastructure to anyone who is an Asterisk developer” to go beyond “rent-an-app” and use the call-processing, voice-processing and data-processing resources in the cloud any way they please. It creates an abundance of solutions that can be put into effect quickly to respond to business requirements.

The newly combined company brings to light the new competitive landscape (or ecosystem) for Recombinant Communications. It is a world where participants must carve out their territory in a space that is legitimized by the fact that e-commerce giant Amazon, CRM leader Salesforce and search giant Google all have designs for dominance. There’s no better indicator that this is an area of rich opportunity.