While WebRTC still faces some formidable challenges to perfect and standardise, it is displaying many signs that suggests that it is close to becoming an inevitable winner. There are no obvious deal-breakers on the horizon – even Apple’s much-trumpeted “no comment” position, or Microsoft’s rival CU-RTC-Web proposal, have workarounds, and are unlikely to be long-term obstacles.
The breadth of companies involved – including Google, Ericsson, Cisco, Telefonica and AT&T – spans both traditional telecoms, enterprise communications and the web. We will see web access added by telcos, for example for IMS access from the browser. And we will also see realtime voice and video communications added by to the web inside social networks, or allowing informal “call centre” functions on normal websites.
But the aspect that impresses Disruptive Analysis the most is the sheer speed of development. Imaginative prototypes, demos and early commercial offers are appearing, even before the standards are finalised. Problems are being resolved in weeks or months, not years. Unlike most telecom-only solutions, developer interest seems to be accelerating, fed by Google’s evangelism and WebRTC’s appearance on the list of cool new additions to HTML5.