When I met with Packet8's chairman a few months back I raised the question regarding licensing XTEN's (now CounterPath's) EyeBeam technology vs. doing what he said they were going to do, which was build their own soft client for video calls over a PC.
Well it looks like my suggestion took hold because today the two companies have announced a licensing agreement.
The move is all about interoperability. That's something that Erik Lagerway was preaching about during his days at XTEN. Now over at EyeBall Networks he's gearing up to do just that with their highly regarded Eyeball client.
As for this deal, P8 now has a means to let people who don't have their video phone see those that do. Why it took them this long for packet 8 to go in that direction is anyone's guess. My two cents are the reason for this move now is the cost of development to build vs. buy was getting to high for P8. By licensing a proven platform they cut down time to market and can also forecast costs better.
Congrats to Mark Bruk and the CounterPath team on this win.