Sponsored By

WebRTC: The Peers are ComingWebRTC: The Peers are Coming

There's reason to believe that there will be 1 Billion WebRTC-enabled devices (think peers) by the end of the year.

Phil Edholm

May 19, 2013

1 Min Read
No Jitter logo in a gray background | No Jitter

There's reason to believe that there will be 1 Billion WebRTC-enabled devices (think peers) by the end of the year.

Many of you have heard of WebRTC and have thought about looking into it, but here is some info that may cause you to accelerate your interest.

At the Google developer Conference, Justin Uberti, one of the Google WebRTC leaders, said that he believes there will be 1 Billion WebRTC enabled devices (think peers) by the end of the year. While he is biased, there is some reason to believe that he is probably right.

Mozilla announced this week that WebRTC is enabled in the general Beta of Firefox 22, the final stage before being in the general release in a few weeks. Firefox will then join Chrome having their standard general-availability browser supporting WebRTC. Together they account for 57% of the browsers.

The numbers for Q1 show that 75% of smartphones shipped with Android, over 162 million units. Assuming that all of those will move to Chrome with WebRTC and assuming no further growth, that is 640 Million WebRTC peers by the end of the year. With iOS dropping to 17% share and only 6.6% year-on-year growth compared to Android at 79.5% growth, can Apple ignore this market to retain the closed garden of FaceTime?

So, when 75% of the people buying Smartphones, 57% of the PCs, and over a billion users have a WebRTC enabled "peer", can you afford to ignore it? If you are not planning your 2014 WebRTC strategy and direction, you may well find your competitors have become your customers new best "peer"!

About the Author

Phil Edholm

Phil Edholm is the President and Founder of PKE Consulting, which consults to end users and vendors in the communications and networking markets to deliver the value of the integration of information and interaction.

Phil has over 30 years' experience in creating innovation and transformation in networking and communications. Prior to founding PKE , he was Vice President of Technology Strategy and Innovation for Avaya. In this role, he was responsible for defining vision and strategic technology and the integration of the Nortel product portfolio into Avaya. He was responsible for portfolio architecture, standards activities, and User Experience. Prior to Avaya, he was CTO/CSO for the Nortel Enterprise business for 9 years. At Nortel, he led the development of VoIP solutions and multimedia communications as well as IP transport technology. His background includes extensive LAN and data communications experience, including 13 years with Silicon Valley start-ups.

Phil is recognized as an industry leader and visionary. In 2007, he was recognized by Frost and Sullivan with a Lifetime Achievement Award for Growth, Innovation and Leadership in Telecommunications. Phil is a widely sought speaker and has been in the VoiceCon/Enterprise Connect Great Debate three times. He has been recognized by the IEEE as the originator of "Edholm's Law of Bandwidth" as published in July 2004 IEEE Spectrum magazine and as one of the "Top 100 Voices of IP Communications" by Internet Telephony magazine. Phil was a member of the IEEE 802.3 standards committee, developed the first multi-protocol network interfaces, and was a founder of the Frame Relay Forum. Phil has 13 patents and holds a BSME/EE from Kettering University.