Image via CrunchBase
Image via CrunchBase
Ten months ago, pal Michael Graves wrote a very detailing post about two new hardware devices, TelyHD which works with Skype, and Biscotti, which uses GoogleTalk as its signaling and media transport layer that on face look very similar. Like many of us who live on the cutting edge, those devices and news of them was very early in the making, as the early adopters took to them, but not much in the way of mass adoption. You can read Michael's post to get the lowdown on both companies, but this post is about the implications I see coming from the developments both companies have made.
You see, when it comes to video in the home and small business offices, I think there is going to be change in adoption and use cases this year, and the reasons are:
Processors inside smartphones, Mobile networks with LTE, Cloud and Broadband to the home getting faster.
Those four reasons together all spell the ability for mobile and fixed line video calling to work more easily together, as well as to propel it's growth. Gone are the days where developers at services and apps like SightSpeed (now part of Logitech) needed to/prayed for the next generation of processors, while figuring out how to get more compression into video and audio streams. Now we have the power in the processors and the speed in the networks to produce and deliver full motion video without much hesitation to use it.
We are also seeing total integration into the endpoint, the camera, with upgradeable software and encoding tools. By putting codecs in the endpoints, that can be updated, much like Apple TV's, video cameras become like telephones of old. We never updated our phones, the telephone company upgraded the network and our phones kept working. And that's the beauty of both TelyHD and Biscotti and once they go 1080P will be even better than 720p, but when you think about carrying video, sometimes size doesn't matter as much, or actually, it does.
What TelyHD and Biscotti both do is bring video calling to the home and office for less than the price of expensive Polycom and Cisco desktop phones. They also use two widely deployed networks with millions of users already connected every minute of every day. While Biscotti seems to be angel backed, TelyHD has funding from both Comcast and Rogers, two of the biggest cable MSO's on the planet. It will be interesting to see just how integrated the programs to sell in TelyHD into business markets really are, because both Comcast and Rogers are very siloed as companies go, and like many venture arms of large communications companies, not always knitted to the fabric of the business.
Perhaps, Yahoo wll jump into this space with an acquisition of one of these companies because as Yahoo moves mobile, one of its biggest strengths is Yahoo Messenger, an app that has always had video and never really exploited it. On an International level it remains one of the most installed chat apps around.
Watch video get even more in home use, as apps and devices from Biscotti and TelyHD arrive under the tree this year.
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