INTERNET TELEPHONY recently spoke to Sajeel Hussain (News - Alert), vice president of marketing and partner development of CaféX Communications, about the company’s offerings in the WebRTC arena, industry trends, and the WebRTC Conference & Expo in Atlanta.
Tell us about CaféX.
CaféX is a leading provider of real-time customer engagement solutions. CaféX software for WebRTC and mobile collaboration solutions seamlessly connect customers to businesses from within mobile and web applications. We offer powerful developer toolkits and server components that embed existing enterprise communications within applications on smartphones, tablets and desktops, enabling businesses to deliver omni-channel experiences that are characterized by consistent, integrated and personalized customer interactions with context across multiple channels. Our solutions not only provide high definition voice, video and IM but also Live Assist features such as screen sharing, remote control, document push and annotation, all of which are enabled via two lines of code on either a mobile or a web app. We also offer robust integration with leading contact centers to ensure proper queuing, context passing and routing. CaféX solutions support Android (News - Alert) and iOS mobile as well as H.264 and VP8 video including transcoding between traditional H.264 endpoint and VP8 specific browsers. CaféX has deployed its award winning technology solutions through OEM relationships with six global banks and a range of businesses that range from Fortune 100 to medium-sized enterprises.
How has CaféX positioned its WebRTC solutions?
Our approach to date has been to focus less on technology and more on the business outcomes. We see that once customers see the results, and experience how relatively simple integration and deployment is, the high-level questions surrounding the ‘what is WebRTC’ transform into ‘how can I apply this technology to my business.
How big is the WebRTC opportunity?
We see the biggest opportunity in redefining customer experience management with contextual intelligence, to drive predictable outcomes and higher Net Promoter Scores. This is where technologies such as WebRTC can play a critical role as [WebRTC’s] simplicity provides a solid foundation for innovating and optimizing many business and operational processes. The size of the opportunity will be determined by the quality, friendliness, and facility of the applications and services that use the technology. We are seeing intense interest in the CaféX Fusion Live Assist solution that leverages WebRTC technology to light up nearly any website or mobile app with integrated live video assistance. In addition, our Fusion Palettes solution simplifies integration of mobile consumer apps with a variety of contact center platforms with live video and contextual communications.
How does the lack of support of Apple's Safari and Microsoft (News 
- Alert)'s Internet Explorer impact you? Have you had to enable work-arounds?
CaféX has taken the initiative to produce plug-ins with native H.264 support for Internet Explorer and Safari browsers to enable enterprises to take advantage of its Fusion Live Assist and Fusion Palettes solutions in nearly any computing or mobile environment. The advantage with this approach is that it not only provides cross browser support, but also minimizes any transcoding while interoperating into an existing SIP environment.
How has the data channel impacted WebRTC in the enterprise?
CaféX Fusion Live Assist uses WebSocket rather than the data channel, as WebSocket is more standardized and therefore supported across mobile devices such as tablets as well as major web browsers, and has more conventional ways to secure data, and handles firewall traversal more easily. Also, in most cases, data that enters the enterprise must pass through a server first to satisfy compliance constraints, which can be problematic for peer-to-peer technologies like the WebRTC data channel. Fusion Live Assist can also utilize WebSocket to support application sharing sessions among multiple participants.
What is the impact of WebRTC Conference & Expo on the WebRTC community?
CaféX has found the WebRTC Conferences to provide a fertile atmosphere for creativity and innovation that has helped accelerate exposure and acceptance of WebRTC across the telecommunications industry. We appreciate the various philosophies and perspectives that different providers bring to the event. With WebRTC still in its adolescence, events like the WebRTC Conference play a vital role in helping customers and providers understand the dynamics that are taking place in the market.
Edited by Maurice Nagle
