British telecom company BT announced today that it had purchased Ribbit, "Silicon Valley's first phone company," for $105 million.

Said BT's managing director of service design JP Rangaswami of the purchase: "Silicon Valley is emerging as a hotbed of telecommunications innovation. With Ribbit, not only do we extend our presence in the Valley, but we also gain a groundbreaking platform, a growing community of developers and a world-class team that share a common vision. Buying Ribbit lets us accelerate that vision."

BT also suggested that the purchase of the company would help it move away from the traditional "walled garden" approach that has long dominated mobile software development, by further opening the company's SDK to developers.

"The Ribbit platform makes it simpler, cheaper and faster to build communications functionality into applications, enabling developers to introduce new revenue-generating voice services in hours, rather than weeks," said BT America's president, Michael Boustridge. "By combining the Ribbit platform with BT's existing web services, we have the potential to deliver some of the world's finest applications for communications innovation benefiting consumers and businesses alike."