Mobile engagement service company Acision announced the launch of its WebRTC SDK last week at the WebRTC Conference and Expo IV. SDK is now available on its forge API platform.
The combination of the Acision WebRTC SDK on the forge API platform enables enterprises to easily incorporate browser-based WebRTC functionality via a single interface using self-service access. Features enterprises can add into web and mobile applications include: video and voice calling, content sharing and chat and IM sessions with the ability to create new apps from scratch or add functions to existing apps and services.
"WebRTC technology will revolutionize the way businesses across all industries engage with their customers," Matt Cockett, EVP, Enterprise at Acision said."With our solution—which is part of our forge by Acision portfolio—companies can integrate the latest click-to-call (voice), video-chat and IP messaging solutions, which can be built into or on top of websites or mobile apps, via a single SDK all in one place, which is unique in this market."
Key features of the release include smarter communication through rich messaging, presence and an audio/video API. Security is provided by transporting messaging, presence and signaling over secure HDDP and WebSocket connections. The SDK itself is deployed in a secure HIPPA certified, elastic-scaling, multi-tenant public cloud, with the option for private cloud deployments.
A large number of companies have recently released WebRTC APIs, tool kits and code to speed up real time communications deployments. Intel quietly announced aWebRTC client SDK and server solutions last week while GENBAND soft launched its KANDY bundle of WebRTC, cloud services and programming tools at the beginning of June with LiveOps, Samsung and SAP as initial customers.
Developers should expect to see more tools announced throughout the year, given WebRTC industry surveys indicate nearly 80 percent of people involved in web development have either introduced or plan to introduce a WebRTC solution or service. This means around four out of five companies in the web development and/or mobile applications space will be providing WebRTC solutions to complement existing tools and cloud-based services.
As is the case with many WebRTC announcements recently, Acision's press release underlined the need for improved contact center communications by increasing the number of channels customers can communicate with agents beyond stock SMS and email. People with a contact center application are increasingly switching to WebRTC as it is an easy and cost-effective way to drop in voice and video to existing websites and applications. SAP is one of the best examples of this trend as it incorporates WebRTC video and IM into its existing customer relationship management (CRM) software and field service software.
Retailers, healthcare and cable industries also received recognition as verticals that can benefit from easily implementing video chat. However, almost any industry could improve with WebRTC’s ability to quickly add voice and video conferencing to existing applications. While there is no formal running count of WebRTC penetration into the enterprise, the increasing wave of tools and services in 2014 will lead to more apps at a faster pace.
