Patent ID: 8848689

Claim:
A private branch exchange (PBX) platform, comprising one or more computing devices deployed in a network computing environment, the one or more computing devices being configured to provide telephony services to a plurality of independent enterprises, each of the enterprises having a plurality of users and extensions defined for that enterprise within the PBX platform, the one or more computing devices implementing a plurality of telecommunications interfaces with a plurality of independent telecommunications providers that facilitate at least a portion of the telephony services, the one or more computing devices also implementing one or more application programming interfaces (APIs) that enable each of a plurality of internal telephony applications hosted by the PBX platform and each of a plurality of external telephony applications developed and hosted on one or more other platforms independent of the PBX platform to integrate with the PBX platform at a corresponding plurality of integration points, the one or more APIs enabling each of the internal telephony applications and each of the external telephony applications to access the users and extensions for subscribing ones of the enterprises, and to control call flows for the subscribing enterprises at the corresponding integration points during execution of the call flows by the PBX platform, thereby enabling each of the enterprises to customize the telephony services using one or more of the internal or external telephony applications without requiring the enterprises to re-specify their respective users and extensions for the internal or external telephony applications.