Skype and Dropbox are easily acknowledged as two of the biggest names in their respective fields, but the growing use of Web-based real-time communications (WebRTC) is starting to make some inroads on these firms' clutch of the market. With the ability to not only conduct chats from a Web browser—both voice and video—as well as the ability to perform file transfers, WebRTC looks to do a lot of what big names like Skype and Dropbox do already. But what will help get such apps in front of the public? Open-Xchange is eager to help do just that with some new help for service providers.
Open-Xchange already makes a suite of apps that firms can rebrand as seems fit—a good alternative for firms like hosting companies and Internet service providers (ISPs) among others—to offer brand-specific alternatives to places like Google Apps. For instance, the OX Text document editor looks to offer an alternative to Google Docs, and since the company received around $20 million in funding back in July, there are clearly investors who believe sufficiently in the product's capability to back it.
That's a good start, especially for those who are either looking for or looking to offer an alternative to Google Docs. But Open-Xchange is looking to build on that idea of offering alternatives with its new services: One known as the OX Drive, and the other focusing on WebRTC. With OX Drive, users will have access to a variety of different tools, all of which can be put to work revolving around various files. There's a music player and a photo viewer, and OX Drive can be quickly put to work with the previous releases in the Open-Xchange system. It can work with several different operating systems as well, working with Windows and OS X, but also with Android and iOS making it useful for not only stationary desktops but also laptops, smartphones and tablets.
That's enough to take on Dropbox pretty readily—Box as well, to some degree—but Open-Xchange stepped things up still further by bringing out a WebRTC system that includes all the biggest parts of WebRTC—voice and video chat, along with file transfer—and will be showing it off at the Parallels Summit show in New Orleans. While the WebRTC system will take a bit to get out the door, OX Drive is ready now for the various Open-Xchange customers to lay hands on and start deploying to the end users.
This white label approach, so to speak, might be pretty helpful in terms of getting WebRTC into more users' hands. While there are still some kinks to iron out of WebRTC overall—tops on the list is the codec dispute that's still going on on several fronts—the basic idea of WebRTC has already shown itself to be a powerful tool that can make competing with the likes of Skype and Dropbox comparatively simple. The issue, of course, is how to get these tools to the user, and the good news is that it's much more possible than some would think thanks to things like this.
This is a positive situation for a lot of people. The users get access to powerful new tools, the providers get to distinguish from the broader herd, and Open-Xchange gets to offer its product line up to more potential users all at the same time. How far it will all go remains to be seen, but Open-Xchange may just have a winner here, and Skype and Dropbox may have cause for alarm.
Edited by
Rachel Ramsey
