
Twilio’s Biggest Partnership: AT&T Will Resell Its Cloud Telecom Apps And API - playhard
http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/26/twilio-att-advanced-communications-suite/
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dangrossman
Twilio's got to be one of my favorite companies in the world.

Their product was truly awe-some in the original sense when I first found it
-- making real phone calls from code without a modem! For pennies! Their API
was one of the best documented and versioned, with almost no learning curveand
great code samples. They showed up everywhere my favorite companies showed up,
from AppSumo startup bundles a few years ago, to StartupSchwag t-shirts and
stickers, to the developer contests I entered where they gave away awesome
prizes.

And they grew up, added features at a blistering pace for a company at the
intersection of old industry and new, without (as far as I can tell) ever
forgetting about the little developer. Their outreach and support is still
excellent.

So, congratulations on the partnership, I don't know anyone at the company
personally yet I'm personally happy for you all, because I know you deserve
the success.

~~~
RobSpectre
High praise Dan. Deeply humbled.

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chrisacky
Good partnership for Twilio, but don't forget that most developers are
passionate about Twilio because of the perceived distance that it had from
AT&T and other carriers.

If you jump into bed with AT&T eventually some of their stink will rub off.
But, you have to hope that this works in the flip side too, and Twilio has a
positive impact on how AT&T operates.

This is only a reseller partnership anyway, so you have to imagine that the
partnership is going to be beneficial for both entities... On the one side
Twilio opens up it's services to thousands++ of AT&T businesses and
developers, and AT&T have the hopes of getting a piece of the "cloud", which
they clearly have lost touch with by charging 10 cent transactions on SMS..

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BarnabasLAL
Agree, awesome news for Twilio. Congrats Jeff and team.

Disagree that passion for Twilio comes from distance to traditional telecom.
That has not been my personal experience, anyway. Can anyone imagine that
Twilio operates in a vacuum without any need for telecom dealings? If
anything, Twilio insulates us from interfacing with the big bad telecoms, and
allows us peons to benefit from their legwork for a reasonable, predictable,
per-transaction fee.

I doubt a blue whale flinches when a krill gives it the finger (proboscis?
antennae? whatever appendage krill use as a rude gesture).

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RobSpectre
Thank you very much - we're pretty stoked about it.

For me at least, I think the passion you see inside Twilio comes from without
more than it comes from within. Every damn day we are running into people who
are doing meaningful, extraordinary work with the stuff we build.

Hard not to get genuinely excited about that. Glad to hear it shows when you
meet us.

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pasbesoin
Just don't let AT&T support and/or reputation ruin you.

There are few companies I hate to the degree I hate AT&T. This is based upon
repeated, personal experience as well as the way they have ripped off the
citizens of my state, amongst others, and fought by hook and by crook to
stifle broadband Internet competition and thereby adequate and improving
Internet availability and performance.

I'll add that if you are acquired by them, you will want to plan your exits,
as remaining under AT&T senior management will, in my estimation, lead to
thoughts of self-harm and suicide.

Yes, strong words. Did I mention that I _hate_ them, and that in my opinion
they have given very good cause for this?

P.S. I should mention that this is the AT&T of today, which is essentially the
rebranded SBC. To distinguish it from the AT&T of yore.

P.P.S. I'm just one "schmuck" out here relating my own sentiment, I realize.
And I don't want to rain on your parade. But I guess I won't delete my
comment; I have some serious concern about the influence a close association
with AT&T may end up having on Twilio. (As well, I guess, I don't think AT&T
really deserves you -- not that that's a very practical business position.)

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blrgeek
Excellent news - congrats to the Twilio team!

New Telecom meet Oldest Telecom. Only one can survive :)

Twilio is in a space where few HN engineers dare to tread. More such companies
will show why 'Software is eating the world'

~~~
RobSpectre
Much obliged. _hattip_

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latortuga
Maybe I'm overreacting to this but this seems like a real disappointment for
Twilio customers. We, the developers that use Twilio, are the people who have
made Twilio a success, by building businesses that do things like "...survey
tools, ad-hoc workgroup messaging and calling, appointment reminder
services..."

How is this good for me as a customer of Twilio if they've decided to now
compete with me? Why should I scale up my business with Twilio if they're just
going to partner with a huge company to offer their own version?

I have loved you for a long time, Twilio, and this really sours me.

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patio11
_How is this good for me as a customer of Twilio if they've decided to now
compete with me?_

A competitor to Appointment Reminder? There were plenty to start with, one
more doesn't worry me. That competitor is AT&T? Crikey, that's actually _good_
news. It's like someone designed an enormously scalable, ridiculously
efficient machine for sending pissed people with money to Google to search for
me.

If Twilio bizdev guys are listening, the only other thing on my Christmas list
is convincing the Department of Education to award a contract to SAIC to
develop free bingo card creation software and put it on the desktop of every
teacher in America. (That would 10x my sales overnight.)

~~~
wikwocket
Good reminder that small warm-blooded mammals shouldn't necessarily fear
gigantic dinosaurs. And that competition can be a good thing, if only for
market validation.

I can totally see how a large company providing a general/basic service could
be a big help to someone who provides a specialized, customized service in
that space. It's free advertising for the space as a whole... you could almost
view it as stage 1 of your funnel.

But be careful what you wish for with the bingo card software... I have a
friend at SAIC, and if that contract came through, we might have to take up
your challenge. ;)

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rmc
Not only the "general/basic" vs. "specialized customized", but I presume
patio11 is betting on the software coming out of a megacorp to be rubbish and
hard to use, and rarely able to adapt to changes from customers.

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sunsu
What do they mean by "resell its cloud telecom apps"? I run a Twilio driven
product (BetterVoicemail.com) that we've been selling to enterprise customers.
Is my product an example of one of these "apps" that AT&T will resell?

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RobSpectre
Always great to hear from you Lyle. We think this is a big deal for you and
all the other developers in the Twilio family.

Looking forward to seeing you at Twiliocon to rap more.

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sachingulaya
Congratulations. It's been a pleasure developing on top of twilio.

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RobSpectre
Thank you very much. _fistbump_

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Josh2600hz
Congrats to Twilio. Seems like VoiceAPIs are heating up and quick.

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TwilioJosh
Nice! Great comment from another company doing pretty cool things. :)

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josh2600
For sure, lots and lots of hard work went into this win.

Telecom is a huge market, and a global one at that. I think it's fair to say
that Twilio is probably the best Developer Evangelism team on the planet.
Kudos for doing it with class.

//Sidenote I can't remember the password for the josh2600hz login, but it's
still logged in on my iPad. First World Problems.

~~~
loumf
On your iPad, click your name in the upper right, and make sure there is an
email on your profile. Then when you try to login and fail, you can email
yourself a new password.

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telecuda
Hopefully a side-effect of this is speeding up the release of an MMS API,
which will unleash a whole new flurry of photo-sharing startups that we appear
to love so much.

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tdfx
Has this been discussed at all by Twilio? MMS rollout over Google Voice has
been moving at a glacial pace for years now (although they did add Sprint most
recently, so there is 1 person I know who can now send me pictures). I know
each carrier has its own MMS system of sorts, so I'm curious whether the
challenge is more technical or political.

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telecuda
They don't officially comment on it -- which is different than saying "it's
not on our roadmap" like they do with other features -- but with the size of
the opportunity it presents, the relationships they have with carriers, and
the combined talent of their engineers, I'd say it's only a matter of time.

