As we turned the page on another year this week, we looked forward to what 2014 might hold. Cisco, for one, believes WebRTC will have a big impact on the tech industry this year, as it is one the company’s top tech predictions for 2014. Here are some other top WebRTC stories from this week.
We caught up with Steven Johnson, president of Ingate, which sells E-SBCs, among other solutions. Ingate is in development on what Johnson describes as WebRTC PBX companion products that will allow companies to add WebRTC to existing SIP PBX environments. Ingate is just one SBC company looking to implement WebRTC solutions this year – other vendors include Sangoma, Metaswitch, GENBAND and Oracle.
WebRTC has a lot of different use cases. Many immediately pointed to the contact center, as it extends the available channels for agent-customer communication by enabling face-to-face video and audio communication. It also has potential to impact and disrupt other industries as well, such as education and recruitment technologies.
The problem with the video and audio conferencing systems available to educators and students today is that they are proprietary and often require additional software and a standalone app to install, which may require a licensing fee or setup cost. WebRTC eliminates these hurdles, seamlessly adding video conferencing, screen sharing and other real-time interaction options to existing Web tools for students and educators.
The recruiting process is a tiresome one, both on employers and candidates. Many people do not prefer phone interviews, as they don’t think they fully depict a person’s personality, but getting candidates to come into an office may be difficult depending on schedules and locations – and what if they get all the way into the office only to realize immediately they are not a good fit? Interviewing is tricky. Luckily, the growth of video technology eliminates many of these issues. It enables an experience similar to real-life interaction while saving the time, costs and effort of bringing someone into the office, at least for an initial check.
We also took a look at some WebRTC products and solutions in action today, including:
Businesses looking to adopt real-time communications have a lot of reasons to turn toward WebRTC. We laid out some of the benefits of WebRTC for improving businesses, especially when online presence is so important in an ever-connected world.
Check back in next week to see the latest developments, resources and trends in the WebRTC industry. Have a great weekend.
