At the moment, most observers' commentary about WebRTC involves asking about "browser support", which is understandable given that it comes under the HTML5 and W3C banner.
**NEW Feb 2013 - Disruptive Analysis WebRTC report - details here**
So we see support for WebRTC in the current "public" desktop versions of Google Chrome and - just this week - Firefox. The implementations could still be referred to as "early", but they're out there in real users' hands, not just developers using beta versions. (You'll also sometimes see references to WebRTC being "behind a flag" which means that it's available as an advanced feature if you fiddle around with settings).
Unsurprisingly, conversation then tends to turn to when WebRTC might be supported in Microsoft IE, Safari and so on, for PCs and Macs. Mobile browsers then tend to get discussed next, with mutterings about users' reticence to download and install second browsers on phones and tablets - generally, most "normal" users stick to whatever the phone is equipped with "out of the box" today. So then the predictions start to ponder when the Android browser might support WebRTC, people bemoan Apple's apparent slow pace of adoption ("hmm, they don't want it to compete with FaceTime"), or Microsoft's perceived slowness.
Actually, the picture is more complex than that, especially on mobile, but also on the desktop.
Looking at smartphones, there are actually 4 main possible paths for getting WebRTC support onto mobile devices:
Then there are some other wildcards - we may see WebRTC acceleration performed in silicon at some point (eg video codecs and media processing). Also - and I think I'm the first person to mention this - there's no reason that WebRTC needs to be confined to the browser or aftermarket apps on the phone. Maybe we'll see it crop up elsewhere, such as in email clients, enabling direct interaction with HTML5 emails inside the message. Standby for two-way video spam....
A similar is story is also true on the desktop, but I expect that browsers will "get there first" for the most part. So we could see downloadable applications (Enterprise softphones? Games? Skype? Outlook?) that incorporate bits of WebRTC rather than, or in addition to, their normal media engines. This would allow much tighter control of the experience than relying on browser tabs and windows, and probably make it easier to integrate comms with enterprise apps, security and assorted other features.
Overall, anybody asserting that WebRTC will only take off "when all the browsers support it" is missing half the story, especially on mobile. The reality is considerably messier - and should mean things happen a bit faster than they otherwise might.
**NEW Feb 2013 - Disruptive Analysis WebRTC report - details here**
**NEW Feb 2013 - Disruptive Analysis WebRTC report - details here**
So we see support for WebRTC in the current "public" desktop versions of Google Chrome and - just this week - Firefox. The implementations could still be referred to as "early", but they're out there in real users' hands, not just developers using beta versions. (You'll also sometimes see references to WebRTC being "behind a flag" which means that it's available as an advanced feature if you fiddle around with settings).
Unsurprisingly, conversation then tends to turn to when WebRTC might be supported in Microsoft IE, Safari and so on, for PCs and Macs. Mobile browsers then tend to get discussed next, with mutterings about users' reticence to download and install second browsers on phones and tablets - generally, most "normal" users stick to whatever the phone is equipped with "out of the box" today. So then the predictions start to ponder when the Android browser might support WebRTC, people bemoan Apple's apparent slow pace of adoption ("hmm, they don't want it to compete with FaceTime"), or Microsoft's perceived slowness.
Actually, the picture is more complex than that, especially on mobile, but also on the desktop.
Looking at smartphones, there are actually 4 main possible paths for getting WebRTC support onto mobile devices:
- Support by the default browser that the phone ships with
- Support by a downloadable secondary/replacement browser (complicated on iOS because Apple doesn't allow a separate web-rendering "engine" - they need to be built around Webkit). Ericsson's Bowser is already out, and expect Chrome/Opera/Firefox etc in future as well.
- Support in the OS. This hasn't happened yet, but many expect to see native support for WebRTC APIs in the platform itself, allowing apps to exploit the capabilities, not just web-pages. I'm having lots of interesting debates about which OS vendors might do this first.
- BYOWebRTC approaches, where individual apps actually integrate WebRTC elements - media engine & all - typically provided by using an SDK from one of a growing number of providers offering APIs, cloud "enablers" and other building-blocks
Then there are some other wildcards - we may see WebRTC acceleration performed in silicon at some point (eg video codecs and media processing). Also - and I think I'm the first person to mention this - there's no reason that WebRTC needs to be confined to the browser or aftermarket apps on the phone. Maybe we'll see it crop up elsewhere, such as in email clients, enabling direct interaction with HTML5 emails inside the message. Standby for two-way video spam....
A similar is story is also true on the desktop, but I expect that browsers will "get there first" for the most part. So we could see downloadable applications (Enterprise softphones? Games? Skype? Outlook?) that incorporate bits of WebRTC rather than, or in addition to, their normal media engines. This would allow much tighter control of the experience than relying on browser tabs and windows, and probably make it easier to integrate comms with enterprise apps, security and assorted other features.
Overall, anybody asserting that WebRTC will only take off "when all the browsers support it" is missing half the story, especially on mobile. The reality is considerably messier - and should mean things happen a bit faster than they otherwise might.
**NEW Feb 2013 - Disruptive Analysis WebRTC report - details here**
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