Microsoft Backs WebRTC, Skype Could Go Plugin Free For Browsers

Microsoft has announced that they will be bringing realtime communication to web browsers, and they will do it without relying on plug-ins. The proposal from Microsoft was sent to the W3C WebRTC working group, and was centered around “Customizable, Ubiquitous Real Time Communication over the Web.” The CU-RTC-Web proposal is considered the first real step toward the establishment of a web standard that would allow the creation of browser-based communications essentially allowing a browser version of Skype. Granted Microsoft is already planning to tie Skype into their rebooted Outlook.com email service, however it still requires a plugin. Should they succeed in finalizing the WebRTC standard however, it could lead to a non-plugin version. As it stands Microsoft isn’t the only one involved in this, Google, Mozilla, Opera among others all have some stake in WebRTC, with all three having support for it in one way or another in their browsers. Microsoft on the other hand will be waiting for it to become a standard. That said, the company is also pushing for greater compatibility and with no predefined codec in order to improve legacy support as Microsoft is skeptical of Google’s open sourced VP8 codec. Still it seems that the future of communication will be web-based and plugin-free to boot, with the possibility of interoperability between Skype, Google Talk etc being possible. For a more in-depth analysis check the source below.