[May 01, 2012]

ACT Conferencing, Kathea, Microsoft and Tata Communications Join Open Visual Communications Consortium

ACT Conferencing, Kathea, Microsoft (News - Alert) Corp. and Tata Communications have joined Open Visual Communications Consortium™ (OVCC™), a group of leading service and solution providers creating the blueprint to deliver high-quality video collaboration that connects any vendor, any network and any device, anywhere. With Microsoft, which joins as a new board member, ACT Conferencing, Kathea and Tata Communications, the OVCC membership count has reached 23 members in the first six months since the independent group launched in October 2011.

"OVCC members are eager to offer enterprise customers greater reach and more choices for consistently high-quality video communications, and our continual growth demonstrates that the industry values the OVCC blueprint and collaborative market approach," said Andrew McFadzen, OVCC president. "We are excited to welcome our new members, with their unique strengths and market expertise, into our collaboration to achieve the OVCC goal of connecting millions of users across six continents."

OVCC members contribute to and implement the OVCC technical and commercial blueprint, using established standards and best practices to accelerate and commercialize business-to-business video communications. OVCC members are committed to providing video around the world to enable enterprise users to place and receive video calls beyond corporate firewalls and across standards-based and proprietary video platforms. The first OVCC services are scheduled to launch later this year.

The consortium welcomes its new members:

• ACT Conferencing delivers customized, high-quality audio conferencing, video conferencing and web conferencing to thousands of organizations worldwide. For nearly 20 years, companies have relied on ACT Conferencing's experienced customer support staff, feature-rich teleconferencing platforms and global conferencing support to communicate efficiently and ecologically.
• Kathea is recognized for representing best-of-breed communication solutions and for delivering technology that enables customers to be more efficient. Through partnerships with globally recognized and respected brands, Kathea offers solutions that enhance customer communication strategies and optimize their return on investment.
• Microsoft is committed long term to the mission of helping its customers realize their full potential. Just as Microsoft constantly updates and improves its products, they work to continually evolve the company to be in the best position to accelerate new technologies as they emerge and to better serve customers.
• Tata Communications is a leading global communications and IT service provider to both enterprises and services providers worldwide. The company's Integrated Business Video Services creates the world's richest connected video ecosystem, including business-to-business video services, cloud-based services, and flexible, modular managed services, as well as the world's largest public room network. These offerings culminate within the Global Meeting Alliance ™, an open business video ecosystem which provides participating enterprises and service providers with greater global reach, lower total cost of ownership and an optimal user experience.

The new members join OVCC founders (marked with an asterisk) and existing members:

Service providers will develop and implement OVCC technical and commercial specifications based on industry standards, best practices and business approaches to answer the need for interconnection, addressing, signaling, interoperability and service coordination. Interoperable, high-quality connectivity across networks and devices should allow network providers to profitably and predictably monetize their inter-enterprise video exchanges. By making interoperability requirements invisible to the enterprise, the OVCC specification enables enterprise users to leverage video conferencing investments and enable more efficient value chains - spanning customers, distributors and suppliers - to improve the speed and efficiency of doing business.

Video collaboration stakeholders interested in closing video connectivity gaps should visit www.ovcc.net or meet OVCC members in person at TIA in Dallas, Texas, June 5-7, or at CommunicAsia in Singapore, June 19-22.

About OVCC

Open Visual Communications Consortium is a group of global video exchange providers, network providers and equipment manufacturers that have united to expand video communications and simplify video calls. OVCC members will create multi-vendor, multi-network specifications offering a technical blueprint and business model to support the full spectrum of video systems, from immersive telepresence and room-based systems, to high definition and standard definition, and from desktop clients to mobile devices. Join the OVCC by visiting us at ovcc.net.

Open Visual Communications Consortium is a non-profit organization under Section 501(c)(6) of the Internal Revenue Code.

OVCC is a trademark or registered trademark of the Open Visual Communications Consortium in the United States, other countries or both. All other product or service names are the property of their respective owners.

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