57 percent of respondents to our WebRTC Impact Survey have WebRTC solutions already in development.

Next week, Dialogic will head to Atlanta for the WebRTC Conference & Expo.  While there are many WebRTC-focused events out there offering demos and expert advice, I consider this one to be the best.  So as we prepare for this year’s Expo, now is a good time to ask: Is WebRTC for real? 

Another year has gone by and we still have no Apple or Microsoft endorsement. In my keynote at last year’s Expo, I publicly challenged the industry to come up with some value-added services above and beyond making a phone call. But mainstream WebRTC application deployments still elude us. Then again, we’ve all seen the power of Amazon’s Kindle MayDay, which is nothing if not WebRTC-like. So is WebRTC for real or what?

I would say yes, it’s for real. If someone is creating a value-added service application that relies on WebRTC, such as a conference call in which some or all of the clients call in from WebRTC, they would need a media server that speaks the right language. And judging by the activity of PowerMedia XMS, Dialogic’s WebRTC media server, I would say that the demand for WebRTC is for real. 

That’s not all. We are (finally!) seeing some video action. Most, if not all, of the WebRTC engagements we’re involved in use video as well as audio. Is it because the networks can finally support video? Or is it because we’re so inherently used to video in today’s world that we expect it to be incorporated into communications applications? I’d say it’s a little bit of both. We see the application activity. Rollouts will occur.

There is also a lot of transcoding action happening with our products. This means our customers are expecting to transcode WebRTC codecs into the IP multimedia subsystem (IMS) or other IP typical use codecs, which is encouraging. 

Next week, come see our CEO and president Kevin Cook on June 17 when he gives the luncheon keynote at the WebRTC Expo. Kevin will be speaking about the key role media servers will play in the future of WebRTC.

To get a head start, download “Seven Reasons for WebRTC Server-Side Media Processing: When WebRTC Needs a Media Server,” a white paper written by Tsahi Levent-Levi, leading blogger at BlogGeek.me and WebRTC activist. It gives a great overview and unique point of view about why media servers matter.