Anticipating and Preparing for Massive Disruption to Your Communications Environment and Engagement Strategies
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Ten Things CIOs NEED to Know About WebRTC webinar recording
WebRTC is an emerging standard that enables real-time voice, video and data sharing in a Web browser without the need for browser plugins. Potentially billions of devices supporting a browser – PCs, laptops, smartphones, tablets and a host of new devices – from a variety of manufacturers will be real-time communications-enabled. Whereas browsers have typically interacted only with one or more Web servers, WebRTC allows browsers to exchange media and data directly and in a secure manner.
Although third-party programs like Skype have been around for a long time, and some browser-based plugins have been available for limited communications interactions, the implications WebRTC brings to organizations of all types and sizes of are enormous. Ubiquitous voice, video, and data for gaming, customer service, communications and personal and group engagement opens a new world of possibilities for innovation and disruption. The transformative power behind WebRTC is that ordinary Web developers using just JavaScript Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) can craft fully functioning voice, video and data collaboration applications or embed these capabilities within other applications with just a few lines of code.
This report is designed to provide CIOs and decision makers with the right balance of depth and breadth to help them understand what WebRTC can do for them as well as what it can do to them. We begin with an overview of WebRTC, what it is and how it is architected. We discuss federation among WebRTC-enabled sites and integration with legacy communications platforms including Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and the public switched telephone network (PSTN). We describe the security mechanisms inherent in WebRTC.
Using this preface on WebRTC to level set the reader, we then discuss 10 things CIOs and decision makers need to know about WebRTC. These include:
- Where’s the money for me in WebRTC
- A discussion of how WebRTC will disrupt the current communications industry
- The timing of the WebRTC standard
- The islands WebRTC will create, for better or for worse
- Why offerings like Skype may or may not go away
- Why Microsoft opposes WebRTC as it is presently constituted
- How WebRTC will play into the world of mobile devices, including smartphones and tablets
- Why WebRTC may not disrupt all complex collaboration, only most of it
- The millions of interfaces that will emerge to invoke WebRTC capabilities
- Identifying and classifying some of the current WebRTC players.
We conclude with eight actionable recommendations organizations can take now to prepare for how they will use WebRTC’s disruptive capabilities.
WebRTC will transform both the business and consumer communications markets. A number of prominent companies including Google, Mozilla, Microsoft, Cisco, Oracle/Acme Packet, Opera, Ericsson, Siemens, Avaya and others are involved in its creation. As one of the most important communications innovations in many years, amidst WebRTC enthusiasm there must also be rational thinking. This report goes beyond the hype by providing an unbiased analysis of WebRTC, its strengths and weaknesses, and where it will impact you.