WebRTC is a free, open project aimed at giving web browsers real-time communications capabilities via simple Javascript application programming interfaces (APIs). The standardization effort is in progress to embed audio and video conferencing capabilities in browsers, enabling mobile devices to talk to Web browsers.
With web browsers’ real-time communications capabilities, WebRTC heralds a new era in enterprise networking.
Gartner’s research vice president Geoff Johnson, said, “Major vendors and those in the open source community working on WebRTC developments will likely solve many of the initial issues required to enable communications from browsers within the next two years.” According to the analyst, the standard is part of the patchwork of HTML 5 solutions being developed at present.
Continuing, he added, “Looking beyond the next two years, there will be significant motivation for a wide range of users and suppliers of communications applications to exploit WebRTC concepts and practices and extend the capabilities into mainstream enterprise networking.”
Expanding on Johnson’s comments, WebRTC can create browser pages for real-time communication as part of an internal workflow, e-commerce, or business process application for contact center operations and communications enabled business processes. Similarly, WebRTC-based applications can create video connections to other devices and media servers that support the standard.
Furthermore, Johnson continued, "Enterprises should expect WebRTC to eventually become robust enough for use in communications applications in general. They should also prepare for WebRTC to be used in browser-based unified communications and collaboration, contact center and videoconferencing."
Google, a strong proponent, integrated WebRTC into its Chrome development channel early this year. Consequently, the search engine giant offers a video chat plug-in based on the framework for Google Talk. Likewise, in April 2012, Mozilla Foundation released a demo of the WebRTC video calling function running inside Firefox browser. And Microsoft is working on implementing the WebRTC API for Internet Explorer browser.
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Edited by
Brooke Neuman
