Anyone else remember this? FaceTime was to be OPEN, that was a year ago. Still nothing. FaceTime uses the open standards, but it is not “OPEN”, meaning nobody else can play along.
How long is it going to take before we see Apple living up to their commitments? Hopefully not long, I for one would love to see a FaceTime (and iMessage) API.
Written by Erik Lagerway - Visit Website
Update 2: To the hundreds/thousands of repetitive spam tweets / twits, “Will WebRTC replace / kill Skype”, the answer is NO!! It will not. WebRTC is using broken Jingle in the browser, it does not support chat and can only make and receive calls., there is no buddy / contact list to speak of etc etc. NO it will not replace Skype. Stop with the spam tweets already, please!
Update: It seems to me that until all the browsers are on board, native clients will be required to make this go. Which is not outside the realm of possibility, considering Google has open sourced the GIPS audio and video engine along with WebRTC.
Something to remember, WebRTC is not RTCWEB! It may sound silly but it’s true. WebRTC is a Google-centric project using Google code etc. RTCWEB is essentially an IETF effort, a working group driving towards open real-time communications on the web. They are not the same, which can be rather confusing.
— Original Post —
Google has been busy it would seem, last night WebRTC appeared to the public for the first time. This has some pretty serious implications for Flash, which was the de-facto technology one had to use to get real-time communications in a browser, that has now been circumvented, at least to a certain degree.
The sessions are not run by a signaling protocol per se, not Jingle, no XMPP, not SIP not anything we have seen before. All the session management looks to be coming from libjingle. Which, to me means Jingle is in the browser.
A few early comments:
1. Where does Google stand on websockets? Google have said they will block it if an exploit emerges.
2. Chrome, Opera & Firefox are the supported browsers. Where does Safari and IE land? My guess is that Microsoft will not be in any hurry to implement this considering their recent Skype acquisition.
3. Web-cam captures from HTM5 has not been ratified, although this is likely not as serious as the former points.
Written by Erik Lagerway - Visit WebsiteI just received this email from Skype’s PR firm…
Hi Erik,
Here is Skype’s official comment regarding Skype for Asterisk. You can attribute this to Jennifer Caukin, spokeswoman for Skype.
“Skype made the decision to retire Skype for Asterisk several months ago, as we have prioritized our focus around implementing the IETF SIP standard in our Skype Connect solution. SIP enjoys the broadest support of any of the available signaling alternatives by business communications equipment vendors, including Digium. By supporting SIP in favor of alternatives, we maximize our resources and continue to reinforce our commitment to delivering Skype on key platforms where we can meet the broadest customer demand.”
Thank you,
Cassie
Call me crazy but if I have to pay to integrate Skype into my phone system, where I already have a phone service that I am happy with, why would I do that? Maybe I just want to be able to make/receive Skype calls on my SIP-enabled desk phone? If it doesn’t hit the PSTN why do I have to pay? Seems like an odd approach for a company that has a long history of working around POTS, much to the delight of their users.
Integration with SIP is great, don’t get me wrong, but it would be nice if Skype talked SIP and was ‘still’ free. Seems like a massive oversight on behalf of Skype or am I missing something?
Written by Erik Lagerway - Visit WebsiteImagine a new secure P2P (Skype like) offer that also supported SIP in the client. You could use the client software on it’s own (just like Skype) or attach it to just about any VoIP service or phone system for free.
Does it make sense for consumers?
Does it make sense for business users?
Is there room in the market?
Would you use it?
Martyn Davies chimes in…
I would use it, but as a telecom industry insider, I know that I’m not the average business user or consumer. As to whether there is room in the market, I think that depends a lot on what Microsoft do with Skype now that they own it. From a business point-of-view, their efforts are focused around OCS/Lync (and software licenses), so Skype there is not adding to their central proposition. Skype has a lot of users, but produces very little revenue, since the majority just use the free services. As a Skype competitor you would have the same problems getting to the cash.
Skype was really the first company to take VoIP and make it completely trivial to install and use. To do that, they had to take some liberties and deviate from standards (like SIP), so that they could add the magic that made it work from behind firewalls, add security and self-configuration, and integrate video so seamlessly. Like Facebook, once it is clearly the biggest of its kind of services, it becomes the community that everyone must join. I can’t see that another Skype-alike has a way in, unless Microsoft significantly change the rules now.
The RTC WEB sessions in Prague made it pretty clear, to me at least, that everyone knows that SIP is broken and we also know that it’s not going away anytime soon. That being said it will likely not be the only protocol to be used in conjunction with RTC WEB.
I think it’s a consensus, at least of the IETF participants of the RTC WEB BOF, that we should not be discussing signaling protocols within RTCWEB at this early stage in the process of creating a WG (working Group) in the IETF.
It’s likely the correct approach. If we pigeon hole the community into using one protocol over another we are not really doing the future of communications any great service. In the same breath I also think it is important that we do not lose sight of the fact that the business world today runs on SIP and will continue to do so for some time to come.
The one thing that stuck out is the obvious gap that exists between what we have today and what we need in order to make RTCWEB a huge success, although I do know of a few companies that can move rather quickly when presented with a challenge as well so maybe it’s not such a big deal.
Prague was great, on many levels. It will be very interesting to see the progress we make between now and Quebec.
Written by Erik Lagerway - Visit WebsiteUpdate: That went rather quick, the Charter has been accepted by the room and the work will begin (as it were) on Friday. Cullen Jennings took a bet that the WG would make it’s milestones 
Which means by April 2012 we will have what we need to deploy. That will be tough to champion, even for Cullen.
___
There have been plenty of clarifying questions thus far and now we get into Charter discussion. I am going to attempt to record the discussion, stay tuned if interested.
Written by Erik Lagerway - Visit Website
..Follow on Twitter
..Posts via Email
..Blog Feed