This is taken from a presentation I “gave” during UpperSide’s WebRTC conference in Paris recently.
I have been ill these past two weeks. Got chickenpox. The worst illness a grown up can catch if you ask me. Due to it, I didn’t go to the Paris event – spent most of the time sleeping instead.
Amir Zmora was kind enough to present on my behalf, using my slides below.
The slides I am interested here are 18-30, the ones covering WebRTC PaaS – the WebRTC API Platform vendors. I took the time to review all the changes we’ve seen throughout 2014 in this space, and they are many.
The WebRTC PaaS market is dynamic and changing on a monthly basis. What I’ve put into this slide doesn’t include moves like Temasys’ SDK, OpenClove’s FreeMAD or Twilio’s NTS – just players that entered this market or left it.
We started here:
And ended here:
The path we take in 2014 with WebRTC PaaS?
- It all began more or less when SnapChat acquired AddLive – and took them off market. Being one of the best WebRTC PaaS around, this left a void that wasn’t really filled up until today in the market
- Crocodile RCS, another WebRTC PaaS player got acquired by Acision – and turned into Forge. A new WebRTC PaaS platform. If Crocodile had any customers, they probably got migrated to Forge witohut a lot of objections
- Rebtel, a VoIP OTT player, spun out Sinch. Took its infrastructure and turned it into a service of its own
- ooVoo, another VoIP OTT player, announced their own developer platform. They just didn’t spin it out to a separate entity
- Blackboard acquired Requestec, taking them off market. Blackboard is into education services, so the whole Requestec angle of financial and healthcare didn’t make sense. There was little customer backlash, so there probably weren’t many of those for Requestec at the time
- Genband, an infrastructure vendor for telcos, announced Kandy – its own version of WebRTC PaaS
- Weemo decided to change its name and rebranded as SightCall. I liked the name Weemo more, but no one asks me
- Digium launched Respoke. The company behind Asterisk going with a WebRTC PaaS play of its own
- Bistri took the time this year to shift its efforts from a service into an API platform for developers
- vLine, which I never considered an API platform, but many did – closed their API program
- <more on Forge, Sinch, Respoke, Kandy and ooVoo in this post on the new entrants to WebRTC PaaS>
All that in a single year.
2015 isn’t going to be less dynamic. We will see some players leaving the market and a few others joining in. For some reason, the idea of an API platform is enticing many as a way to make money with WebRTC. It is not an easy route to take.
Starting 2015, I’ll have to refresh my report on WebRTC API Platforms, taking into account recent changes in this market. If you are contemplating on purchasing it before the end of this year, I will be offering a 20% discount – just contact me.
Great review Tsahi! 2015 will be very dynamic, since I believe that both MSFT and Apple will start supporting WebRTC in their browsers. We are finishing new VoxImplant’s features to offer full UC stack for developers.
Alexey,
Thanks. Waiting to see what VoxImplant has up its sleeves for us in 2015 🙂
Good post Tsahi – excellent summation of 2014, WebRTC as a PaaS.
BTW – Hope you get better soon. Yep, chickenpox in an adult is no joke!
Michael,
Thanks for the kind words. I am now back in the “land of the living”. Just need to get used to sleeping less than 10 hours a day again…
Which one is the platform you would invest if you were a Venture capitalist?
And why ?
Not a question I’d answer here in the open 🙂
It also varies, simply since some of these vendors don’t really need VC money while others must use it. Modifying the question to which one I’d be happy to work for or get options/stocks at won’t be a good one either, as it will be to personal, and would be based on my own views, which are at the moment optimized for having fun and improving my small world – and not towards maximizing profit.