Hundreds of companies offer WebRTC solutions for enterprise communications, collaboration, and embedded voice, video and messaging features on web pages and in mobile apps. As WebRTC continues to mature, what large enterprises need from their Communications Services Providers (CSPs) – companies like Verizon, AT&T, CenturyLink, BT, Orange, Telefonica, Vodafone and other global and national network operators – are solutions that pull through their “carrier class” redundancy, scalability and security.

The business model of Communication Service Providers (CSP), traditionally known as telcos, is under attack on multiple fronts. For decades, the telco business model has been one-sided: telcos provide services to consumers in a completely unidirectional paradigm where they define the offering and consumers can take it or try and find another one-sided competing offer.

Change or lose. Transform and win. Transformation in the real-time communications software industry is all around us - there is software everywhere, in the network, on the edge, on devices and endpoints, in the applications and embedded in applications. Nothing is standing still, and those who develop a score for transformation will orchestrate value creation while the rest will be doomed to cacophony.

As the holidays continue, and we all rest up for the exciting year ahead, I thought we’d share the constellation we see forming here at GENBAND in the expanding universe of Real-Time Communications software and solutions. We see software everywhere, in the network, at the edge, on the device, and embedded in applications. The evolution of the communications cloud and “communications-as-a-service” is continuing to skyrocket.  Here are seven streams of predictions.

More people with smartphones…

More Internet access points with the growth of Wi-Fi and hot spots…

More developer platforms and the rise of real-time communications APIs…

The freelance economy is the future of work, even in the traditional workplace. Getting things done, especially in the hyper-connected information age, is happening more and more remotely, and is increasingly being measured in “job units.” How productive the coming generations of workers are will likely be measured less by “punching the clock” and more by “finishing the job” – one job after the other.

 With billions of dollars being directed toward the virtualization of network functions through more sophisticated and scalable software solutions, making the processing and management of sessions increasingly efficient, and real-time communications more profitable – where is the real upside for service providers and enterprises going forward?

Over-the-Top (OTT) service providers, like Skype, Google, WhatsApp and Netflix are riding on top of Communications Service Providers (CSPs) capex-intensive infrastructure by delivering Web and mobile competitive offers either directly (pure OTT VoIP applications) or indirectly (embedding voice, video and messaging into social, mobile, or gaming apps).  

I came to GENBAND in February of this year.  I joined the company because of my past experience with David Walsh and his ability to lead.  You see, I am all about innovation and execution.  For ideas to turn into innovation it requires a winning culture.

Culture can be defined as the cumulative IQ of the team, past experiences, attitudes and willingness of the group of people of an organization to win.  Culture is the critical environment in which ideas will thrive or die. Winning cultures require teamwork.

Everything in the communications industry is changing – again.  Today, GENBAND is formally launching Kandy and after opening this powerful “Platform-as-a-Service” to a handful of our partners as part of an “early access” program, tonight we will be sharing their applications, which will prove to the world that communicating in real-time will never be the same. Those partners include massive companies like SAP, IBM and Tech Mahindra, as well as smaller start-up companies.