WebRTC is fairly new, as it still undergoes standards development, initial deployments and exploratory use cases. However, despite its young age, WebRTC is thought to many to be a communications disruptor, bridging the gap between telephony and the Web. It’s also starting to have a global impact; companies and industry professionals from Australia and Africa are jumping in on the WebRTC discussion.
WebRTC World caught up with David Alozie, “retail geek” from Etisalat Nigera and speaker at the upcoming WebRTC Conference & Expo, happening June 17-19 in Atlanta, Ga. Alozie will be speaking on a session, “The Global View,” along with Bill Lewis from Temasys, which will cover the impact and adoption of WebRTC in other regions in the world and the potential impact on business, investment and societies.
“To me WebRTC technology isn’t just integral to business, but is the business, owing to the fact that it is a disruptive technology. It is something new, better and cost saving,” he said. WebRTC gives businesses leverage by offering a unique selling point to end users and prospective customers, he explained. The data channel also offers opportunities to businesses, giving them a perfect substitute for data and information sharing. 
Google is one of the companies spearheading WebRTC development, and is incorporating WebRTC into Google Hangouts. Alozie looks at that move as an opportunity to learn from its implementation processes. “There is an incredibly large market for every WebRTC company. What matters is your go-to-market strategy, target market, business models and your unique selling points, which determine how much your business would grow,” he explained.
While WebRTC has been introduced for a few years, it’s still relatively new, and people’s views on the adoption curve differ. Alozie thinks WebRTC is at the early market stage, which is an operating platform for innovators and early adopters and is something that laggards in the adoption curve would soon be wowed by.
In major African countries, economies, contact centers, education and job recruitment industries are among the first to adopt WebRTC. Alozie says he has to explain what WebRTC is pretty frequently because it is so new.
Talk to the WebRTC community, and the development of WebRTC has typically come down to two main challenges: lack of support from Apple and Microsoft, and video codec standardization. Alozie, however, doesn’t think that way. He doesn’t view Apple or Microsoft’s lack of involvement a major issue since there are substitutes available that make WebRTC solutions and applications available over their operating systems and browsers.
In terms of the video codec war, Alozie is hoping for “an undisputable VP9 codec.” He said VP8 would have laid some business issues to rest, seeing that Google is so involved with the codec, but H.264 does offer comparable advantages for video quality, power consumption and CPU usage.
“I will be speaking on the opportunities in Africa with respect to WebRTC. Most Africans fall under the early adopters and early majority group in the WebRTC adoption curve. And I would be showing a ‘What,’ explaining a ‘Why,’ and showing a ‘How’ for WebRTC in Africa,” he said.
Learn more about the event at www.webrtcworld.com/conference or follow us on Twitter @webrtcexpo.
Edited by
Maurice Nagle
