Marratech was a Swedish company that made software for e-meetings (e.g.,

web conferencing Web conferencing is used as an umbrella term for various types of online conferencing and collaborative services including webinars (web seminars), webcasts, and web meetings. Sometimes it may be used also in the more narrow sense of the peer-le ...

videoconferencing Videotelephony, also known as videoconferencing and video teleconferencing, is the two-way or multipoint reception and transmission of audio signal, audio and video signals by people in different locations for Real-time, real time communication. ...

). It was acquired by Google in 2007.

History

Marratech was founded in 1998, as a spin-off company from the Centre for Distance-Spanning Technology at the

Luleå University of Technology Luleå University of Technology is a Public Research University in Norrbotten County, Sweden. The university has four campuses located in the Arctic Region in the cities of Luleå, Kiruna, Skellefteå, and Piteå. With more than 19,000 students a ...

. Founders include Dr. Dick Schefström (deceased), Prof. Peter Parnes, Johnny Widén, Prof. Kåre Synnes, Mikael Börjeson, Magnus Hedberg, Serge Lachapelle and Claes Ågren. The Marratech prototype was launched 1995 as part of an EU project called Multimedia Assisted Tele-engineering (MATES) project. Marratech's first product, which offered voice, video, whiteboard and group instant messaging, was first released in November 1998. The first release required the presence of an

IP multicast IP multicast is a method of sending Internet Protocol (IP) datagrams to a group of interested receivers in a single transmission. It is the IP-specific form of multicast and is used for streaming media and other network applications. It uses speci ...

network and was built as a server-less architecture. The solution has since evolved to support both traditional IP Unicast and IP multicast, high security and multi-platform computing. For guaranteed, serverless, scalable data delivery over both Multicast and Unicast, Scalable Reliable Multicast (SRM) is used over the

Real-time Transport Protocol The Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP) is a network protocol for delivering audio and video over IP networks. RTP is used in communication and entertainment systems that involve streaming media, such as telephony, video teleconference applicatio ...

, called SRRTP. In 2004, Marratech introduced support for dialing out to IP telephones, land lines and mobile phones via the

Session Initiation Protocol The Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is a signaling protocol used for initiating, maintaining, and terminating communication sessions that include voice, video and messaging applications. SIP is used in Internet telephony, in private IP telepho ...

(SIP). In 2005,

H.323 H.323 is a recommendation from the ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) that defines the protocols to provide audio-visual communication sessions on any packet network. The H.323 standard addresses call signaling and control, m ...

support was added to communicate with traditional video conferencing equipment. In 2005, Marratech launched Marratech Free, a freeware edition of its product to host video chats online accessible to everyone. In 2006, one of the first projects to handle remote, wireless eye examinations via video-conferencing was launched in rural India by the

university of Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant univ ...

and

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...

, with Marratech providing the video-conferencing technology. In 2007, Marratech's video conference software was acquired by

Google Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...

. Most engineers and key personnel have moved to Google. The financial terms of the acquisitions were not released. This acquisition was announced a few months after

Cisco Cisco Systems, Inc., commonly known as Cisco, is an American-based multinational digital communications technology conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develops, manufactures, and sells networking hardware, ...

acquired

Webex Webex by Cisco is an American company that develops and sells web conferencing, videoconferencing and contact center as a service applications. It was founded as WebEx in 1995 and taken over by Cisco Systems in 2007. Its headquarters are in San ...

. Google plans its use for their staff members initially and later they might come out with a massive change in the software for public use. On December 12, 2009, Marratech announced that it would close down its website before the year-end. On February 19, 2010, Marratech announced on their homepage that it had suspended all its services. Its server no longer allows download of either client or server software.

Description

Some of the key features included in Marratech are: * High quality voice for groups with private audio feature * Interactive group whiteboard * Multi party video Some of the key underlying technologies are: * 256-bit

Advanced Encryption Standard The Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), also known by its original name Rijndael (), is a specification for the encryption of electronic data established by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in 2001. AES is a variant ...

(AES)

end-to-end encryption End-to-end encryption (E2EE) is a system of communication where only the communicating users can read the messages. In principle, it prevents potential eavesdroppers – including telecom providers, Internet providers, malicious actors, and even ...

* Support for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux on the client and server side. * Support for bandwidth saving clusters * Support for IP unicast, IP multicast or both * Support for

(dial in and out, E.164) and

(SIP) *

H.264 Advanced Video Coding (AVC), also referred to as H.264 or MPEG-4 Part 10, is a video compression standard based on block-oriented, motion-compensated coding. It is by far the most commonly used format for the recording, compression, and distri ...

video The solution includes a freely downloadable client and a server, called the Marratech Manager. Users include Alcatel Alenia Space, Verizon, the Swedish Police Department, The Swedish Army and a number of Universities around the world.

References

External links

Marratech's homepage

Public Marratech Meeting Servers

Evaluation
by

Monash University Monash University () is a public research university based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Named for prominent World War I general Sir John Monash, it was founded in 1958 and is the second oldest university in the state. The university has a ...

Review by Network Computing

Review
by Mac Observer
Acquisition by Google
{{Google LLC Groupware Discontinued Google acquisitions Privately held companies of Sweden Companies established in 1998