Breaking the Mold: How Headroom’s In-House Video Conferencing is Changing the Game for Partners
When it comes to software development, the decision of whether to build or buy is one that often arises first in the minds of decision-makers and can be a crucial one. Should you invest time, effort and resources into building a custom implementation tailored to your specific needs, or opt for a pre-packaged off-the-shelf solution? In this article, we will explore why at Headroom we decided to build our own proprietary video conferencing stack instead of using existing services, and how this translates to direct benefits for our partners.
Headroom is a first-in-class video conferencing technology powered by artificial intelligence (AI), designed to be embedded in collaboration tools used by remote teams, including whiteboard tools, project management platforms, and more. We’re not just offering an alternative to traditional video conferencing; our vision is to increase teamwork effectiveness and productivity in these platforms with AI-powered connection, understanding, and knowledge sharing. Our decision to build our own video conferencing service has three key benefits for the platforms who partner with us: increased security, minimized cost, and ability to innovate.
At Headroom, we understand that security is not just a feature, but a fundamental necessity. In today’s digital world, where critical information is exchanged during meetings, from sealing major deals to brainstorming the next game-changing idea, it is paramount to safeguard data and ensure privacy. That’s why we made a conscious decision to build our own real-time video conference system, where security is woven into every aspect of its development. We do this in two main areas: first, all video streams are encrypted and never leave our servers. Second, we utilize a hierarchical model structure that provides useful personalization while also protecting users’ privacy. By having complete control over the software development process, we can implement robust security measures to protect your data and ensure the privacy of your meetings. With Headroom, you can have a peace of mind knowing that your meetings are protected, so you can focus on what matters most: unlocking the full potential of your business without compromising on confidentiality.
Cost is another barrier that you usually find choosing an existing third party solution. While off-the-shelf offerings can save development time, they are pricey and their pricing models may not align with your business needs, leaving you with the dilemma of selling at a loss or passing on the costs to your clients. By building our own conference system, we have the flexibility to create a sustainable product that meets client requirements without compromising on quality or security, all while keeping costs under control. With Headroom, you can offer cutting-edge conferencing that empowers your business without breaking the bank.
Last but not least, we do some magic to make your meetings truly extraordinary! From recording and transcribing videos to processing them with our cutting-edge machine learning stack, we go beyond the usual and capture every nuance and context of your meetings. Unlike existing options that may lack support for these advanced patterns, we’ve crafted a product that’s flexible, without being at the mercy of third-party services.
To illustrate why these benefits are so important, consider the alternative. Imagine you are a leading productivity and collaboration platform that wants to add real-time communication and the power of AI to your offering. Because building would require finding space in your roadmap, as well as hiring experts in AI, machine learning and web RTC, you decide to go the buy route. You buy several separate products for video conferencing, transcription services, generative AI and data storage. First, you are looking at a large cost by paying for each of these solutions independently, a cost you are forced to either absorb or pass on to your customers. Next, you must determine how to get all these separate systems to work together in a way that feels seamless from a user’s perspective. Third, and most importantly, if any one of these systems experiences an outage or data breach, you lose the ability to offer secure real-time collaboration to your users. Relying on many systems working well in tandem reduces the overall reliability of your service.
In conclusion, at Headroom, we believe that forging our own path to create the next generation of video conference services not only creates a first-in-class collaboration experience, but has direct benefits to our integration partners. We understand that security, cost and innovation are critical in today’s digital landscape. Instead of relying on gluing together existing solutions, we made the bold decision to invest in building our own conference service. This allows us to uphold our vision and deliver a seamless, cutting-edge and dependable meeting experience that exceeds expectations. Join us on this exciting journey and experience the Headroom difference for yourself!