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Google adds first voice, messaging platform to Cloud Platform through Twilio

Twilio scores a major win as it moves into a prime position along the development process for applications hosted on the Google App Engine.
Written by Rachel King, Contributor

Google is adding some new options to its tool set for app developers thanks to a new partnership with Twilio, a San Francisco cloud communications business.

For reference, Twilio produces a voice and messaging API that can be integrated within apps for SMS and voice communications without the entanglements of telecommunciations giants. Directed towards business customers, the Twilio client is cloud-based for scalability and implementation on either mobile devices or desktops.

Some examples of those customers already using Twilio's API include Hulu, Airbnb and Salesforce.com, among others.

Google is joining the party by bringing it to the Cloud Platform and App Engine. Twilio community manager Meghan Murphy highlighted in a blog post on Tuesday that Twilio is "the first voice and messaging platform integrated with Google Cloud Platform."

Five years ago, if you told your IT department you needed to build and scale a communications app in a week, they’d laugh – maybe even quit. Today, we have cloud-powered tools that allow developers and entrepreneurs to do this in a matter of days, building real-world businesses at scale with Google Cloud Platform.

Murphy suggested potential use cases for the Twilio API for apps hosted on the Google App Engine, such as sending business cards via SMS, on-call scheduling with PagerDuty, and building a group messaging app.

Robert Do, a product marketing manager at Google, noted in a separate blog post that the Internet giant is also announcing native Python and Java libraries for working with Twilio APIs onto Google Cloud Platform.

A full how-to guide about using the Twilio API is available now.

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