If you've visited
websites on the Internet on your phone or your computer, you very likely
have used a browser. Common ones include Internet
Explorer, Google Chrome or Mozilla's Firefox, as well as Safari on the iPhone.
While
they were built to visit websites, some companies believe that they can
do a lot more, and simplify our lives in the process. According to Tata Communications,
the right functionality added into browsers would allow any business to
add new features that would help employees become more
productive.
"Despite
some welcome advances,
the majority of us are still struggling with parallel and separate
communication platforms. Most startling of all, integration with
workflow internally - and especially externally - remains the exception
rather than the rule," said Anthony Bartolo, Senior Vice President,
Unified Communications & Collaboration, Tata Communications, listing
instant messaging, telephony, video conferencing, voice-mail, email and
text messaging as some of the platform examples.
New
browser-based functionality such as WebRTC could provide a shortcut to
creating communications features that will work on any device, allowing
access to the shared information anywhere, said Bartolo.
Made publicly available, or 'open sourced' by Google in May 2011, WebRTC is
today an industry-wide effort to transform browsers into hubs for
real-time* communication. WebRTC
is already found in the latest versions of Chrome and Firefox.
Businesses can make use of WebRTC to allow employees to call each other via video
or voice, or conduct instant chats from within their browsers. There
would be no need to source for, or install separate software as is
required today, and employees would be able to collaborate in the way that works best for them.
"If
enterprises want collaborations to succeed, they need to listen to
their employees and understand their needs and to experiment
persistently. Like a start-up, IT departments developing collaboration
tools for the enterprise need to launch minimum viable products and
watch to see what works and what doesn’t. Increasingly, the reduced
costs associated with API-based development will allow enterprises to
work this way," Bartolo predicted.
While WebRTC is still in its
early stages, software developers are taking notice, Bartolo said. "I am
confident that open, well supported, APIs are the missing link enduring
developers to focus on what really matters: building collaborative
tools."
To
find out more about the world of communications – past and present –
and how APIs are about to become the game-changer, download a white
paper from Tata Communications here.
*Responses
to real-time communications occur immediately, similar to a
face-to-face conversation, against relatively delayed communications
such as email or postal mail, where responses will not be received until
after the message is opened.
