WebRTC – The rising tide that lifts all boats?

Is WebRTC the rising tide that lifts all boats or the tsunami that wreaks havoc in beach fronts?

This one is sure to be a hyped filled post. If you are a skeptic when it comes to WebRTC, feel free to move on or just comment on why WebRTC isn't going to change anything – no need to dwell and read.

At the WebRTC Conference & Expo event, Ericsson held a panel in their keynote. It was interesting to see – a company pays for a keynote and then uses it as a panel to chat about a technology. I wanted to know what Ericsson has to say, but probably having no real idea, they opted for a panel instead. But I digress… during that panel one of the panelists had said tht "WebRTC is the tide that rises all boats".

I find it a very naïve view of what WebRTC represents.

To me, WebRTC is a tsunami alert, one that is being ignored by most of the incumbents, and it is one that is going to wreak havoc at those who don’t react. It has the potential to change the face of communication.

There were 3 types of companies in the event in Atlanta:

1. The WebRTC companies, those that have fully embraced it and are bolting it into their strategy and business model
2. The VoIP incumbents, those that have added it as just another access point into their network/PBX/MCU
3. The powerpointers, those that have nothing to show besides flashy power point slides that have little to do with reality

Most of the WebRTC companies were small startups, or small companies that exist for several years and have adopted WebRTC to start a new service or stitch it to an existing one. Working my way through the crowds, I tried to understand the team sizes in these companies, and it seems that in most of them, the people that develop the WebRTC solution have a magical number of 4.

4 developers.

Building video conferencing solutions.

Point to point calls.

Multipoint video calls.

Mobile apps.

Recording.

Integration with directory services.

Global deployment the world over.

4 developers.

That's less than the number of developers maintaining any of the solutions that an incumbent has for only the signaling or the media components of his product. I'd be scared by such a predicament if I were an incumbent.

The tide that raise all boats? Some are going to sink. Just a matter of time.