WebRTC

Wow - what a week! With lots of announcements, demos, and parties, Enterprise Connect 2014 did not disappoint. While I didn't have much time to walk the floor or attend sessions, I met with lots and lots of vendors - some whom I've known for many years, and some who I just met.

WebRTC is a hot topic, as it can potentially disrupt much of telecommunications and UC. WebRTC World has just published their WebRTC Outlook 2014 Report. This report covers the outlook for WebRTC in 2014 based on feedback from leading vendors, entrepreneurs and users in the WebRTC community.

At ITEXPO in Miami last week I had the opportunity to sit down with Howard Lee, the CEO of Spoken. We talked about the current Spoken business, which is focused on Cloud Contact Centers, IVR, and other key components of the custom interaction experience. Spoken has done two key things, creating a cloud/virtualized contact center using Avaya and Cisco, and focusing on improving the IVR/automated experience through their Smart IVR technology.

When multimodal communications (UC) software first began to appear, we all were excited by its ability to make us more productive; keeping us more efficiently and flexibly connected. However, in some respects, it has also made business communications more complex. While legacy telephony was simply device-to-device calling, UC is more than person-to-person contacts at desktops or with mobile devices, it's also about interactions with online applications and timely, proactive notification messages from business process applications.

GENBAND is entering the WebRTC space, with the introduction of SMART OFFICE 2.0. This unified communications (UC) solution is available not only on a range of business devices, but also via WebRTC-compliant web browsers. This end-to-end collaboration solution lets users access their communications from devices of their choice, and is delivered as a cloud-based offering or deployed in an enterprise data center. With the addition of the WebRTC option, GENBAND has opened up more options and opportunities for users.

I have occasionally been challenged as "hyping" WebRTC. As many of you know, I believe that something extraordinary is happening in the communications market through WebRTC and the "webification" of communications. In a new report, ABI Research appears to be confirming that WebRTC is a major trend, validating that belief that we are on the cusp of something significant. In the market analysis report just released, "Future of Voice and Messaging - WebRTC and Telco APIs", ABI Research is forecasting 4.7B (billion) Mobile WebRTC Devices by 2018.

2013 was not a great year for UC. It had its moments, but as a whole the industry didn't make many leaps. Let me recap the year from a buzzword perspective.

As we move into a new year, it's clear that the accelerating changes in communications capabilities are affecting corporate purchases and usage, especially for voice communications. The growth in mobile, in peer-to-peer communication, in communications capabilities embedded into business applications software, in new devices, in BYOD, in WebRTC - all these and more are changing personal and corporate communication patterns.