By Scott
Raynovich | Nov 5, 2013
Right now, a bunch of nerds on the Internet
Engineering Task Force (IETF) in Vancouver are making big decisions
about the next big wave in web communications standards. And these
decisions will have a big impact on some of the largest technology
companies, for many years to come.
Real Time Communication
The IETF is hashing out some of the final details
of WebRTC, the
standard that will enable real time video calling in a web browser,
among other things. This includes a decision on a controversial video
codec standard, which has flared up in a skirmish between Cisco and
Google.
WebRTC stands for Web Real Time Communication
(RTC). When it's finalized and starts to be deployed over the next
year it will affect nearly all of the technology giants, including
Apple, Cisco, Google and Microsoft, among many others. It includes a
lot of features, but the headline item will be enabling you to make
real time voice and video calls from a web browser such as Google
Chrome or Firefox Mozilla. See ya, Skype?
Because deploying real time video and voice
calling software in web browsers will have the effect of
democratizing and expanding real time voice and video calling in
standard web software, the politics are already red hot. Not only
does this threaten proprietary platforms such as Skype and Apple's
FaceTime, but it opens up the potential for a whole new generation of
open collaboration tools to be built into a web browser.
For this reason, many technology firms are lining
up with strong opinions — or are at least a little nervous —
about WebRTC. Google and Mozilla really like it. Cisco kind of likes
it. Microsoft isn't really sure it likes it at all and Apple has been
pretty much silent.
The Old and the New
This week's IETF meeting is expected to decide
which video codec to include in the WebRTC standard — the older,
but more legacy-friendly H.264 backed by Cisco or the more
aggressive, Google-favored VP8. This is symbolic of the huge
technology implications that WebRTC for large technology companies as
it is deployed in the next year.
"Google opened up the codec. Cisco hates
Google's codec. And Apple's ignoring the codec," said Brian
Riggs, Unified Communications (UC) analyst with research firm Ovum,
explaining how the various vendors were lining up their strategies.
"All of the vendors are squabbling over the underlying
technology base."
With Google having given away VP8, its free video
codec technology, Cisco made a last-ditch effort to shore up support
for H.264 in WebRTC. Just last week it made its version of H.264
avaible as open source, and agreed to absorb the licensing costs.
Who Wants What?
While Cisco says it supports WebRTC, it really
wants H.264 to be a part of the standard, because Cisco and its
clients have invested a lot of money in H.264. They want to make sure
existing Cisco infrastructure works with WebRTC.
"The standards are there to facilitate
interoperability," said Jonathan Rosenberg, vice president and
chief technology officer of Cisco's Collaboration unit. "We've
been strong supporters of WebRTC. We were one of the folks that
initiated this effort. It's core to what we believe in. We feel that
the technology that should be built in a way that it works in a way
it exists today. The Internet is full of H.264. There is a lot of
that on the Internet."
Ovum's Riggs says the battle is not so much about
the past but the future of Internet video communication. H.264's
successor, H.265, is already in development. A victory for VP8 would
put more power in the hands of Google, which distributes VP8 freely,
and it will likely kill momentum for H.265.
"Cisco's pushing H.264, but it's old-school
and it's starting to lose its relevance because it's been around for
so long," says Riggs.
Just the Start
The video codec, however, is just the beginning of
what are likely to be huge impacts of WebRTC, which threatens a lot
of established businesses, such as Skype. For example, Microsoft,
which owns Skype, has not even said when it will support WebRTC in
its Internet Explorer browser, even though Google and Mozilla have
said they will aggressively roll out WebRTC into their respective
browsers, Chrome and Firefox.
So, the video codec decision is only the beginning
of what will be a long and fascinating strategic battle with this
important web standard. Tomorrow, in a continuing look at WebRTC,
we'll look at the long-term implications for collaboration and
software vendors.
*Article courtesy of http://www.cmswire.com
**full newsarticle here HERE
