The Latest 2014 Gartner Magic Quadrant has just been released and as usual it’s the usual leap-frogging match between Cisco and Microsoft Lync that we see every year. This year Microsoft have just beaten Cisco to the post. I won’t dwell too much on the report as I am sure by now you’d had a chance to read it. If you haven’t, you can read it here.
If you read between the lines a little, one thing mentioned a couple of time is the growing mention (and lack of support in some cases) for WebRTC. Within the latest report, Gartner states that “Enterprise planners must also expect considerable change in technology and requirements…….Significant advances, such as WebRTC, are making it easier to integrate communications directly into business applications.”
So what is WebRTC?
WebRTC enables media rich browser-to-browser communications without the need to download “plugins” or run applets. This simplifies application creation for developers on the back end too and because its’ web-based and back-end based it means that updates can be rolled out really quickly without the need for users to download and install updated software.
WebRTC is already supported on over a billion endpoints according to Google (who are a major WebRTC developer) who expect the number of WebRTC-capable endpoints to grow to nearly 4 billion by 2016.
Phil Edholms’ who is a WebRTC expert and president at UC Strategies.com says that “The thing that is really exciting about WebRTC is that, in addition to enabling a website to allow two peer endpoints to begin a rich media session (voice, video, data, etc.) with a relatively simple set of instructions, WebRTC is the initial technology showing the change coming in the industry, the webification of communications.”
Why do I need to know about it?
It’s not just traditional Unified Communications such as Cisco Jabber and Microsoft Lync (which uses a non-standard HTML 5 variant) that are moving to support this technology either. Specialist Web Conferencing providers technology that are enhanced by WebRTC either. The Contact Center, and customer interactions in general will see huge benefits in using WebRTC as it will enable much better interactions with people on SmartPhones and Tablets that don’t want (or cant) download special apps.
Whilst existing “leaders” are adding WebRTC support into their existing product portfolios, there are also new emerging vendors releasing UC&C products based solely around WebRT. For example in April 2013 GenBand introduced SPiDR, a specific WebRTC gateway. This sits on the network edge and provides web-centric, open APIs that allow app devs to build apps that use the rich communications services of the telecommunications network –voice, IM, video, conferencing, presence and all that other jazz.
Later this month, the online retailer http://www.toygeniusonline.com/ will go live with a new website in which shoppers can interact online with sales teams in real time. They will be able to provide real time assistance to shoppers about their products, answer any questions, and even show them videos of the products customers are interesting in. It’s like a physical shopping experience but online – all delivered using WebRTC technology. From here the virtual sales assistants can put the products customers select into virtual shopping baskets and then move shoppers to the online checkout when they are ready. They expect this to significantly help address the abandoned shopping basket and enrich the shopping experience.
It will be interesting to see this space develop further and see what next year’s Gartner Magic Quadrant looks like for the Unified Communications space.
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