Multi-Million Development Funds Help Drive Developer Adoption

We have seen substantial traction continue to grow in the Web Real-Time Communications (WebRTC) industry in recent years. While it is still unclear who will emerge as the dominant player in the market, at this point there are a number of companies heavily investing in the future of their solution. One of the ways companies are preparing for the future is by focusing on developers. Many of these companies are now making development funds available to help attract developers and drive adoption. This is one way larger players are creating an advantage for their organizations to attract the developer talent to their solutions.  This makes it very difficult for most startups to match and keep up with the millions larger players are pouring into their developer ecosystem, so it will be interesting to see how they plan to combat this growing trend.

Twilio

Twilio announced their $50 Million TwilioFund at their Signal Conference last year in May.  While not focused on WebRTC, the fund helps drive developers to create new and innovative communications applications. We look forward to seeing what companies have made use  of the fund. It should be an exciting Signal Conference this year, chock full of announcements and insight into customers, developers and new services around the corner.

Slack

Slack is taking the business and collaborations industry by storm. It’s a simple tool that enhances communications and helps teams work more efficiently. Slack just recently introduced Slack Voice which uses WebRTC at it’s core. In December 2015, Slack introduced a $80 million fund to incentivize developers to build with their platform even more. Strategic moves such as this help set companies such as Slack apart from the competitors.

Cisco

Most recently Cisco introduced the Spark Innovation Fund which provides $150 million to developers to build using Spark. Tropo’s acquisition along with many others over the past few years is helping drive more developers to the Cisco development community. In many ways Cisco is setting themselves up to be a dominant player in the market by thinking about the next five to ten years instead of next year’s balance sheet, something that most startups can’t afford to overlook.

In Conclusion

Large companies who can be nimble and move fast to grow developer adoption for their solutions will lead the industry in years to come. Cisco in particular has made a lot of acquisitions over the past 3 to 4 years which is laying the groundwork for future success. Development funds are helping companies gain the attention of the developers to help drive innovation. As Software as a Solution (SaaS) services continue to grow across all industries, it leave us wondering, will companies start relying more heavily on third-party services to run their businesses despite the ever looming acquisition and/or shutdown of the service. A recent example of this is the acquisition of Parse by Facebook a few years ago that has now been slated for shutdown at the end of the year. We think that is another topic to be covered in a later article but for now developers and business owners are intrigued by development funds that help them reach their business goals.  

About Blacc Spot Media, Inc.

Blacc Spot Media focuses on Web Real-Time Communications (WebRTC) development across web, mobile, native desktop and telephony implementations. Our team works on strategic projects developing custom applications, enterprise platforms and mobile applications for a wide array of clients. If you are interested developing your own WebRTC product or service, let us know how we can help you.

Take a look at our website for more information (https://www.blaccspotmedia.com) or email us at hi@blaccspot.com.