Breaking News--On the second day of WebRTC World in Atlanta, TokBox, now owned by Telefonica Digital, has made some news with a customer service oriented play called OpenTok, reports TechCrunch.
This is no surprise, not from them, or the category that TokBox is attacking, as customer service with chat boxes tied to web pages are already being plentifully deployed so the natural progression of chat to voice and video is no big strecth, and with WebRTC now in two of the top three most used browsers, regardless of standards, the market is clearly there.
What is also not surprising is that Telefonica Digital is doing this as one part of their new efforts.
Parent Telefonica is sucking wind in Spain, rumored to be selling off their mobile operations in Ireland and other non Spanish, non-LATAM countries. The mounting losses in Spain, defections to other carriers due to a declining economy are forcing the telecom giant to start to amass cash to fend off American Moviles expansion efforts in South America, the other part of the world where Telefonica has massive business interests.
But with other efforts like Telefonica Digital happening with AT&T Foundry, Vodafone R&D, Verizon's Innovation Centers, Orange Labs one has to look down the road and over the horizon to see that eventually some standard and uniformaity will need to occur. My view is that these "labs" will be spun out of the parent and a new company started combining the best ideas, people and opportunities, serving as a Bell Labs of the 21st century. That though is good 5-10 years off.

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