Video calling has gained a lot of ground in recent years, with several competitors making a play for supremacy in the market space. With Web-based real time communications on the horizon, projecting a serious threat to the current order, current front-runners like Skype (News - Alert) are undoubtedly extra-sensitive to competitors in the current field. Viber, meanwhile, has joined the ranks of major Skype competitors, announcing earlier that it chalked up over 200 million users from 193 different countries.

A milestone like 200 million users would be good enough for just about anyone, but this is actually especially big for Viber. That 200 million was attained with surprising rapidity, as reports indicate that at the end of 2012 Viber counted 140 million users to its credit. By the end of February 2013, that number had reached 175 million. Now, in the opening days of May 2013, it has cleared 200 million, meaning that 60 million users were added to the roster in a little over four months. Likely adding to that popularity is the recent addition of support for eight new languages, upping Viber's total support to 27 different languages. This makes Viber usable by a large chunk of the planet.

But it's not just big new numbers for Viber, or big new language counts; Viber also released a desktop version—Viber Desktop—for PC and Mac. The Viber Desktop uses many of the same elements that the original, more mobile, Viber used, including the phone number as ID approach. Desktop users can quickly transfer calls from the mobile version to the desktop version — the process to do so is described as involving a single click or tap — and can delete conversations at any time. Viber Desktop also offers the crucial feature of making video calls. It's still a beta feature, and the calling will only extend to other Viber users for now, though current reports indicate that expansion to mobiles is likely in the near future.

Viber's bag of tricks also extends to one other new service announced, the release of Viber 3.0, which is a huge update to the iOS and Android (News - Alert) versions of Viber and a completely new version for BlackBerry devices. This update will help ensure that the mobile devices will work with Viber Desktop.

Take 200 million users, in 193 different countries, with support for 27 languages, and add in a rapid growth curve over the last six months, and it's easy to see why some are starting to regard Viber as a worthwhile competitor to Skype. The field may be about to get crowded, but those platforms with a substantial user base are most likely to hold their position against the oncoming rise of WebRTC.  WebRTC may simple to use, but when people already know and use one platform, they aren't likely to leave that platform unless there's a significant reason to do so.

Viber and Skype, among others, are likely to hold their own against WebRTC, but the threat WebRTC poses can't be taken lightly. Continued innovation and vigilance will likely allow current platforms to keep the ground they've already taken, and Viber is showing just what kind of innovation it can bring out.