RingCentral Adds Choice and Flexibility With WebRTC

Since late last year, RingCentral has been releasing production applications based on WebRTC — but WebRTC the technology is not really the exciting part. What is exciting is the flexibility to embed cloud communication services in every business context where it makes sense. To that end, RingCentral is expanding its use of WebRTC across new product areas, as well as releasing a new WebRTC SDK as a beta to customer and partner developers.

Why is WebRTC significant? Business applications are increasingly based on cloud services and web standards. As the web standard for real-time communication, WebRTC means it is no longer necessary to rely on desktop apps or browser plugins just to enable click-to-call in a web application. Voice calls happen natively in supported browsers (i.e.: Safari and Chrome) with WebRTC.

Here are a few key areas where WebRTC capabilities will be available:

Integrations

Over the coming year, we plan to use WebRTC to power many new integrations and begin retrofitting it onto the established ones. For example, RingCentral’s integrations with Google for Work and Office 365 allow customers to click on any phone number to instantly place the call over RingCentral’s enterprise-ready cloud PBX, directly from the web browser. The Google for Work integration has already proven so popular that it is generating more call volume than any other integration we have released to date.

Messaging and Collaboration

The other exciting area where RingCentral is unveiling WebRTC support is in Glip, RingCentral’s team messaging, productivity, and collaboration platform. This new capability enables users to escalate a messaging conversation to a voice call by leveraging our enterprise cloud phone system, company directory and WebRTC-enabled browsers. Now it’s easy and seamless to experience real-time voice calls natively in the browser with a single click of a button, without the need for a separate application.

Developer Platform

We’re really excited about the innovation anticipated from opening up a WebRTC SDK on the RingCentral platform. For third party developers who are interested in trying out this capability for themselves, a brand-new WebRTC SDK, tutorial, and documentation is now available. Our developer support team also stands ready to assist our customers and partners on different projects. To learn more, check out our WebRTC support on our developer portal.

Flexibility is what makes RingCentral a unique and complete solution for customers. WebRTC is a cutting edge and flexible option to empower users. Choice is good, and RingCentral is going to bring you more exciting choices in the year to come.