The intellectual property created and controlled by Vidyo is an impressive asset, and testament to their development skills.
It is, just as importantly, a qualifying differentiator in an increasingly crowded market. I spoke with Vidyo Chief Scientist and Co-Founder, Dr. Alex Eleftheriadis, to understand just how Vidyo uses these patents to its advantage in the market.
The answer is actually multi-fold. Not every patent is used in the same way. Some are held strictly to Vidyo’s own products, but many are licensed or shared in some way with either partners, standards associations, or the community as a whole. While the details of which patents are used in which ways were beyond the scope of our discussion, I got the sense that Alex and Vidyo are trying to share enough of their secret sauce to make the videoconferencing infrastructure of the world better. If videoconferencing works better and is more accepted in general, that is a good thing for a video tech company like Vidyo.
As you can see from the press release, Vidyo DNA is in H.264, H.265, VP8, and VP9. This makes Vidyo a pretty compelling choice for a company looking for a video partner. If Vidyo is leading in helping to create the standards for how video traverses the internet, it is safe to assume that their own products/platform will have leading implementations of these standards, with the added benefit of their proprietary patented technology.
These strengths have certainly played into some very large and high profile sales wins for Vidyo over the last year. But I have always thought that straight business video wasn’t the true end-game for Vidyo. I see them as a pure technology company, looking to partner and provide the platform for any use of video. With growing development of the Internet of Things, we are seeing Vidyo develop more and more interesting partnerships. One obvious example is Vidyo’s partnership with Stampede to support drone video services.
After 10 years, Vidyo is part of the VC establishment, but still a very unique player in the market. I think it will be very interesting to see how they continue to evolve under the leadership of new CEO Eran Westman. But for now, congratulations to the Vidyo team for having the expertise and development chops required to produce 100 patents in 10 years!
