Following 8×8’s recent acquisition of video conferencing provider, Jitsi, UC Today caught up with 8×8’s Chief Products Officer, Dejan Deklich, to see what put Jitsi on the radar, and what the plans are for the future?
Why did 8×8 opt to acquire Jitsi among the other vendors in the space?
“In Jitsi, we found a highly-skilled team with industry-leading technical and market knowledge of video conferencing that can support us at 8×8. The team at Jitsi also brings a thriving open source community that helps keep them at the forefront of video conferencing industry developments, including innovative new application use-cases.
By incorporating Jitsi’s open-source technology into our video communications technology platform, and having Jitsi’s talented engineering team play a role in leading our development of dedicated conferencing applications and WebRTC, we’ll be able to open new paths for our customers and further enhance our meetings solution”.
What is the intention for current Jitsi clients? Will they move onto 8×8 or remain where they are?
“The open source community has played a critical role in advancing Jitsi’s projects by validating its use in a diverse set of environments and complementing the core team’s development. As part of this acquisition, 8×8 is committed to continuing to support the growing developer community, and we are excited to engage even more.
Jitsi’s video communications technology will remain open source, which was instrumental in its early success – ensuring that Jitsi remains at the forefront of the video conferencing technology and the latest industry developments”.
Who else did 8×8 look at when considering an acquisition, or who do Jitsi consider as competition?
“Jitsi’s competitors are video conferencing providers in the enterprise segment, specifically those who provide either a stand-alone service or as part of an integrated UC service”.
Are there plans to integrate Jitsi into the new 8×8 collaboration app?
“We intend to incorporate Jitsi’s open-source technology into our video communications technology platform, building it into 8×8 Meetings. This already enables thousands of businesses worldwide to collaborate from anywhere on any device with integrated video and audio conferencing. 8×8 Meetings is a key element of 8×8 X Series, which helps businesses transform their customer and employee experience with one system of engagement across voice, video, collaboration and contact centre, and one system of intelligence on a single cloud platform. With 8×8 X Series, businesses communicate faster and smarter to exceed customer expectations”.
What is next for Jitsi within 8×8?
“As part of the 8×8 business, the talented Jitsi engineering team will play a key role in our development of dedicated conferencing applications and WebRTC”.
It’s a really exciting time in the Unified Comms and Collaboration world at the moment. Constant mergers and acquisitions have dominated the news in 2018, with some shocks across the technology space. As we approach 2019, there are rumours of yet more sales and acquisitions. Just this week, there are new reports of Logitech’s plan to acquire headset giant, Plantronics. There’s also a lot of whispers around the potential IPOs of both Slack and Zoom. As we wind down 2018, it looks like 2019 is going to be just as big.
