Scoop: Microsoft bets on WebRTC for Skype’s browser future
Summary
First job offers searching for relevant talent popped up earlier this year, but a number of new postings published in June reveal that WebRTC will play a key role in these efforts. It wants to transition to a new architecture, but not invest heavily into gateways to keep all those hundreds of millions of users of Skype’s legacy software connected. To put it in a nutshell, WebRTC enables real-time communication, including voice and video chat, in the browser without the need to download any plugin. The company has been adding WebRTC tech to Chrome, where it can be tried out through the Dev Channel build, which is essentially a kind of beta version of Google’s browser. It has been using P2P tech based on work its founders Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom did for their file sharing outlet KaZaA, which has made it hard to take the leap towards a web- and cloud-centric future.
