Sometimes, there are products that get a big boost from the sales of another product, like how the demand for cranberries goes up as a result of an increased demand for turkey, particularly around Thanksgiving time. A new example seems to be making itself known in the world of communications, as a new report from Global Industry Analysts Inc. details how an increased demand for video conferencing and video chat in businesses is likewise driving increased demand for Web-based real time communications (WebRTC) tools.

WebRTC is an HTML5 standard, still being developed but making some very impressive inroads into normal communications use. It's got applications from healthcare to gaming, and makes itself very simple to use by virtue of the fact that it can work with a common Web browser, though at this point the browsers in question are mostly Mozilla (News – Alert)'s Firefox and Google's Chrome browsers. But there's still quite a bit of room for WebRTC to grow, and many are discovering the incredible array of uses this communications service can offer, particularly those with an interest in browser-based video conferencing and video chat tools.

The Global Industry Analysts report, meanwhile, takes a much closer look at how WebRTC is making strides within several different industries, and also, at what developments are taking place within the wider industry, as supplied and consumed by companies like AT&T, Avaya, Plivo, Tango Networks (News – Alert) and Tokbox, among several others.

Indeed, the two concepts are closely related, and it's easy to see why an increased demand for browser-based video conferencing systems, as well as browser-based video chat systems, would in turn spark a demand for WebRTC products. After all, WebRTC can offer both of these ideas together in the same place, and can allow users to get in on video chat and video conferencing from the same browser, and sometimes, even from the same app. The platform that can allow eight or more people to talk to each other—as a video conferencing system can in many cases—can also be used to allow two people to talk back and forth, so there's plenty of transferability as far as demand goes.

It's not universal yet, but this spike in demand should be a huge help in terms of getting WebRTC—and even HTML5 to a certain degree—into more of a mainstream role. With more businesses wanting WebRTC applications, WebRTC developers in turn will move to fill the gap, sensing opportunity, so that the demands of businesses are met, and hopefully ultimately in a profitable fashion.

With the demand on the rise, however, the idea that soon many of us will turn to a WebRTC platform for some application or another is increasingly likely. Given that there are so many uses for such tools in the field, it's certainly not out of line that one of said tools will be making its way to users the world over.