There’s been a lot of talk about WebRTC and the lack of support for the technology from heavyweights such as Apple and Microsoft. After all, let us not forget that Apple has been a major player in the move to effectively destroy Flash as a technology.
Arnaud Budkiewicz, CEO and co-founder of video calling firm Bistri, however, is not worried.
“Both companies keep their roadmap secret, but they are not far from what is cooking,” noted Budkiewicz.
He explains. Back when Bistri started in 2010, the only one-click in-browser experience was RTMFP from Matthew Kaufman and Michael Thornburgh. Kaufman now works for Skype, which is owned by Microsoft—and recently he began contributing to the W3C WebRTC Working Group. So WebRTC support from the Redmond giant seems likely.
Likewise, Apple has started to attend W3C WebRTC Working Group meetings. Just because Apple has not come out publicly does not mean that it is ignoring the technology. If anything, silence means it has something in the works.
WebRTC is much bigger than just being another version of Skype or FaceTime.
“WebRTC is not just a way to build an alternative to Skype, FaceTime or enterprises’ solutions,” noted Budkiewicz. “Applications that will use WebRTC data channels are so diverse that it is difficult to think about all of them. Remote workers and call centers represent entire specific markets, for sure these actors will see in WebRTC an opportunity to add something new to their offer. They might come and see our solutions to reduce their time-to-market, or to build their proper solution by themselves.”
Adoption is about what the technology does, not how it works. The whole point of WebRTC is making real-time communications easy and universal, so if companies are focusing on the underlying technology than they are missing the boat.
“From the consumer perspective, they don’t care about the technology,” he said. “The promise of making video calls or video conferences in one click is what convinces them.”
He added, “We are focused on the user experience. Thanks to WebRTC, we show the developers, the potential customers new use cases, like making a video call in a click on the Web, to a mobile in sleep mode in your pocket.”
Bistri will be quite active at the WebRTC Conference & Expo in Santa Clara next week; it is debuting a new WebRTC Android app, has the first WebRTC app for Google Glass, and also has a Chrome app it will be showing off that works with Windows/MacOS/Linux/ChromeOS.
Apps are crucial when it comes to widespread WebRTC use on smartphones.
“Presence management is the key,” he said. “If you really use a WebRTC-based video calling solution, you need to make your smartphone ring when you receive an incoming call.”
Want to learn more about Bistri? Then be sure to attend WebRTC Conference & Expo, Nov. 19-21 in Santa Clara, Calif., and visit the company at booth #505. Stay in touch with everything happening at WebRTC Conference & Expo. Follow us on Twitter.
Edited by
Rachel Ramsey
