Threats to WebRTC Interoperability?Threats to WebRTC Interoperability?

With no IETF decision on a video codec implementation, WebRTC will continue to have questions hanging over it.

We've recently covered some new and potentially exciting developments around WebRTC--primarily, the move by Cisco to release the H.264 video codec to open source and to pay all licensing costs for implementation into browsers. Google pushed back against Cisco, reiterating its support for its own V8 codec in the standard, and the WebRTC world waited to see what the IETF's working group would do when it met at the end of last week.

What they did was to hold off on making a decision, which means that, for now, the question of whether H.264 or V8 will be Mandatory to Implement (MTI) in WebRTC remains up in the air. Irwin Lazar of Nemertes Research, who leads Enterprise Connect's WebRTC Conference-within-a-Conference (along with Brent Kelly of Constellation Research), told us where he thinks things stand:

"I think that everyone loses except the SBC [session border controller] and MCU [multipoint control unit] vendors. Absent an agreed-upon codec, you end up with the need to transcode between VP8 and H.264, and the need for users to implement plug-ins. We run the very real chance of multiple flavors of WebRTC going forward--Google Chrome's implementation, Mozilla's implementation, and so on.

"I'm continuing to follow the IETF debate; there's some talk of trying to make both VP8 and H.264 mandatory to implement at least as a short term bridge to something else. But unless Google, Cisco, Apple, and Microsoft reach some consensus, we'll still have the video interoperability issues going forward."

"I'm continuing to follow the IETF debate; there's some talk of trying to make both VP8 and H.264 mandatory to implement at least as a short term bridge to something else. But unless Google, Cisco, Apple, and Microsoft reach some consensus, we'll still have the video interoperability issues going forward.

The more I think about it, the more I believe the only reason why we got basic Internet standards like HTML through and established interoperably in the first place is that they basically snuck in when nobody was looking. In the early and mid-1990s, you could still hear people asserting that the Internet and World Wide Web were the "CB radio of the 90s." Everyone's determined not to make that mistake again, so now everyone treats everything like a potential game-changer, and wants to own every new thing, all to themselves. No matter how many times the marketers say it, it's hard to find many vendors who really trust the idea that open standards make the pie bigger for everyone.

And so you get the phenomenon of SBCs that permit SIP networks to interoperate with...other SIP networks, that would otherwise be incompatible. You get Cisco pushing for H.264 video codecs in WebRTC so that the standard will be useful to incumbent Cisco customers, while Google supports V8 precisely because it doesn't want those customers to have a path forward with Cisco. Meanwhile, Microsoft can sit back and smile quietly to themselves, as Skype continues to be the closest thing we have to a ubiquitous video client over the Internet. And Apple...well, they're Apple, so who are you to even question or wonder about them, you philistine?

As I mentioned, Irwin and Brent are busy crafting our day-long Conference-within-a-Conference on WebRTC for Enterprise Connect. Keeping up with WebRTC is an ongoing challenge, but these guys will be prepared with the latest information and the best experts to help you understand what all the developments mean for your enterprise. I hope we see you in Orlando.

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