WebRTC V to Focus on User Adoption

WebRTC Feature Story

WebRTC V to Focus on User Adoption

By Paula Bernier, Executive Editor, TMC  |  November 05, 2014

WebRTC Conference & Expo V is being held in San Jose from Nov. 18-20 and the theme of the gathering this time around is customer adoption. That said, WebRTC V, will include lots of discussion and analysis on early adopters and implementations, explains Phil Edholm (News - Alert) of PKE Consulting, which puts on the event along with Systemwide Media and TMC.

There’s an entire track focusing on how WebRTC is being implemented in various business and government verticals. That includes sessions on WebRTC’s use in cable and broadcasting, in e-commerce, in education, in finance, in health care, and in logistics.

Education about, and recognition of, early adopters at the show will also include the presentation of the WebRTC Business Transformation and Impact Awards. This special awards program will highlight companies and business leaders that have successfully leveraged or integrated WebRTC to solve a business issue, launch a new service, and/or create a revenue opportunity.

This award covers implementations across any vertical or application, including but not limited to general communications, service providers, contact centers, retail, medical, and supply chain. Candidates for this award will be selected based on their ability to show a successful launch of a WebRTC-related project. There will be multiple awards in various categories.

WebRTC customer adoption is poised to become even more widespread – in part due to Microsoft’s (News - Alert) recent embrace of the technology. Microsoft’s move on this front, and the new specification called Object Real-Time Communications that is enabling that to happen, are also certain to be among the hot topics discussed at WebRTC Conference & Expo V.

In fact, Microsoft’s Bernard Aboba, principal architecture, will provide a keynote presentation at WebRTC Conference & Expo V.

ORTC also will be the subject of a session in the WebRTC Conference & Expo V developer track. The spec comes out of a group called the W3C (News - Alert) Object RTC Community Group, which counts Google and Microsoft among its members. (Google’s Jan Linden, senior product manager, and Serge Lachapelle, product manager, will again be among the event’s speakers.)

“ORTC is how Microsoft will support WebRTC,” says Edholm.

That’s important given that WebRTC can be more broadly embraced if more browsers support it. WebRTC already is supported in the Google Chrome, Mozilla (News - Alert) Firefox, and Opera browsers, while Apple and Microsoft (until now) have repeatedly been called out for their lack of support for WebRTC.

WebRTC Conference & Expo V will also feature a track catering to the interests of service providers. Service providers need to pay attention to what’s happening with WebRTC, notes Dean Bubley (News - Alert), director and founder of research and consulting firm Disruptive Analysis, because it is something of a double-edged sword for them.

“For the most imaginative and aggressive, it could bolster their enterprise presence by enabling innovative cloud video propositions, or adding value to IP telephony platforms. But at the same time, for those service providers already worried about the threat of so-called OTT players’ incursion into their market for commodity voice, they will likely face additional and worsening threats,” Bubley says. “For telcos, WebRTC makes opportunities larger, threats worse, and everything faster.”

Service provider track sessions will focus on such issues as how to integrate WebRTC with IMS, the value of media services, WebRTC’s impact on wireless business models, WebRTC’s relationship to M2M, and more.

 “The WebRTC Conference & Expo is the longest running global WebRTC ecosystem event,” says Edholm. “It’s where industry stakeholders gather with their user bases to explore how true browser-to-browser communications are revolutionizing the way businesses and consumers communicate and what economic impacts the technology is creating. This coming November, the focus is on the real-life deployments that are driving value for enterprises around the world.”




Edited by Stefania Viscusi
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