The use cases that will continue to emerge from WebRTC and its inherent capabilities will be fascinating, too. No doubt, It will have a profound effect on the unified communications and collaboration space among others. The “squabble” over H.264/H.265 vs. VP8/9 while significant (“free” vs. royalties…) – especially where interop, legacy issues and mobile devices are concerned are not trivial and will be resolved. HOWEVER, the excitement comes with the future represented by WebRTC’s browser based, user interface which will open up a lot of options. Perhaps this could lead to a sort of “communication democratization” as new players emerge – ultimately expanding the market, while lowering the price/increasing the options for B2B and B2C communications. Good Luck & All the Best !

Thanks again Tsahi

-Chris

Chris,

It will shed some light around the gaps that exist in WebRTC. This includes for me multipoint support, recording and interoperability.

The main body of the research paper itself is actually in the use cases and the ecosystem – what types of vendors are adopting WebRTC, in what ways, and how they are disrupting or entering their respective market niches.

Will this also (besides outlining end user specs – Per Nicholas) detail the back-end scenarios for multi -participants (above 4 users)?

Thanks,

-Chris

Nicholas,

These are all good suggestions. I do cover browser support along with the various solutions employed today to overcome the missing coverage. Didn’t touch the Windows Surface/RT part at all.

As for performance and the likes – not in this one. Will see if and how it fits in there.

Thanks!

For example, do you discuss how WebRTC needs to run on certain browsers on Mac OSX, Win X, and the mobiles. Then Windows Surface/RT, and finally Chrome OS.

I think this is an useful spectacle because of the emerging Win RT/Surface and Chrome OS (Chromebooks and Chromeboxes). Chromebooks for one has 100% success rate getting WebRTC running, unless the hardware performance prevents a decent call to take place. How can businesses make the right decision when choosing RT/Surface and Chromebooks.

This also begs for a minimum hardware specs needed to run a call adequately and what one would consider adequate. For me, I’d need at least 15 FPS, lag no more than 1 second. Audio needs to be sync’d as close as possible with the video.

Warren – thanks for the idea. Now you got my brain cells thinking in a different trajectory – something I don’t need in the next 2 weeks to polish and close this paper 😉

One thing that I think would be useful either as an inclusion in your current research, or as stand-alone companion research done as a follow-up would be to turn the equation on its head. WebRTC for Technical People. While this may be counter-intuitive to a lot of engineers whose knowledge of the standards and underlying protocols is extensive, I always start with a simple assumption about all new technologies. Solutions are created by the people who use
(purchase) them.

The IIT RTC Conference earlier this month included a number of well received presentations designed to focus developers attention on structures to assist in systematically identifying potential roadmaps for monetizing their innovations. The notion is that cool new technologies gain traction as they solve real-world problems for which users are willing to pay. And that the payment part can involve a number of different business models which may or may not involve a direct fee for service.

Early in the adoption life cycle of new technologies, this area invariably lags the technical developments being achieved, and could be of great benefit accelerating market adoption.