The adoption of WebRTC in mainstream enterprise communications apps continues. Lifesize has delivered the integration of WebRTC-based video conferencing and Web conferencing into its cloud solution through Google Chrome. The solution enables guests and internal users to participate in Lifesize cloud-based video, audio and Web conferencing apps from a browser without a plug-in or download.
The announcement by Lifesize reinforces the company’s commitment to the cloud delivery of collaborations services as well as the increasing velocity of WebRTC as a core component of innovative solutions. With WebRTC integration, the clumsy—and often time-consuming delay—in creating downloads of a proprietary client by a guest are eliminated. With the Lifesize implementation, a guest can join a video conference with access to all of the features of the cloud-based solution without download or delay. Joining is as simple as clicking on a URL, accepting the camera and mic sharing and beginning to collaborate.
According to Craig Malloy, Lifesize founder and CEO, “ . . . until now video collaboration tools haven’t met the needs of the growing number of organizations migrating to cloud-based apps. CIOs can now scale video—and empower employees to freely reach all internal and external stakeholders—without increasing complexity or demands on infrastructure and support.” Clearly, WebRTC is the key component in “freely reaching all Internal and external stakeholders.”
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With this announcement, Lifesize joins the ever-increasing group of enterprise players, including Cisco, Unify, Vidyo and Citrix, that have chosen to use WebRTC as the basis of their guest access or complete platform. This is a prolific trend, and with Google moving to H.264 support and Microsoft moving to WebRTC through ORTC in Edge, the world of open Web-based communications is rapidly taking shape. More and more, communications events are becoming URLs that can be joined with a simple click. The age of real time on the Web is emerging, and the result is a dramatic simplification of how we join and use communications, and an enhancement in the rich capabilities of the platforms for both internal and guest users.
WebRTC is not a differentiator in of itself, but the doorway to enabling each of the enterprise vendors to showcase their capabilities and value-adds to the collaborative process in an open and easy to use structure. In fact, this announcement continues to show that system level federation is not required when anyone can join any meeting from any device through the power of WebRTC, and the evolution of the Web to a real-time environment. Have you used WebRTC today? If not, you probably will soon!
Edited by
Dominick Sorrentino
