BT to buy Ribbit?

Although no deal has been signed yet, British Telecom is reportedly buying Internet-phone software developer for $55 million.

It’s not written in stone yet, but it seems likely that British Telecom is set to spend $55 million to but Silicon Valley-based Internet-phone software developer Ribbit, according to the Guardian. Ribbit has created software lets developers design apps to bring together mobile and landlines phones and social networking sites – the concept called unified communications.

It’s a concept that interested Google, which recently spent $50 to acquire Grand Central, a company working in this field.

Ribbit is currently testing Amphibian, a consumer platform like a social networking site. It lets users transcribe mobile voicemail messages to web page text. Calls can be patched from mobile to computer where the caller’s number be displayed and Amphibian can pull up their profile and latest postings from social networking sites. Amphibian will also be able to work with Skype and Google Talk.