[June 04, 2004] Parlay Group Launches ''Parlay-X Web Services for Telecom'' at Record-Setting Parlay Americas 2004 SAN RAMON, Calif. --(Business Wire)-- June 4, 2004 -- The Parlay Group officially launched the Parlay Web Services Initiative: "Parlay-X Web Services for Telecom" at the largest Parlay Americas event to date. The meeting, held in Miami, Florida, drew more than 160 attendees from 61 companies, representing 21 countries and four continents. Developed by the Parlay Group, Parlay-X Web Services for Telecom defines the architecture, interfaces, and infrastructure for using Web Services in a telecom environment, enabling IT developers to quickly generate new, innovative, commercially viable next-generation network applications, based on open standards, and meeting the security and quality needs of operators. "In two-and-a-half years, the Parlay Group has taken the concept of Web Services for Telecom, then developed and published the Parlay-X Web Services for Telecom open standards," said Zygmunt Lozinski, Parlay Group President and IBM executive. "Now we see commercial services that are using Parlay-X being implemented by major operators such as BT and Sprint. This is a tremendous success and shows how we help operators quickly meet market needs. It is also a great tribute to everyone involved: the technical working groups who created the specifications, and the developers in industry who realized Parlay-X Web Services for Telecom in networks." Announcements at the meeting included substantial year-to-year increases in Parlay/OSA deployments and trials (+44%), Parlay/OSA products (+38%), and attendance at worldwide Parlay/OSA seminars and developer events (+58%). Membership in the Parlay Group also continues to grow and now stands at 75 members. According to Marc LeClerc, Service Layer Business Advocate at Ericsson and Chairman of the Parlay Marketing Work Group, "The early success of Parlay-X Web Services for Telecom is one part of a strong increase in Parlay deployments around the world and demonstrates the value of Parlay's strategy to support multiple levels of abstraction. Operators are focusing increasing resources on service delivery platforms supporting open standards and reducing time-to-market, and Parlay has become the vehicle of choice for operators, service providers, and vendors." The Parlay Group wrapped the meeting by revealing its focus areas for the coming year: continued evolution of Parlay-X Web Services for Telecom and the Parlay/OSA APIs, continued training for developers looking to create new, commercially viable applications, and the continued support of operators looking to offer a whole new range of innovative services through the publication of numerous white papers in the coming months. The next Parlay Meeting will be held November 1-3, 2004, in Barcelona, Spain. Additional details will be available on the Parlay Group website: www.parlay.org. The Parlay X Web Services specification is available for download on the Parlay Specifications page: http://www.parlay.org/specs/index.asp. About The Parlay Group The Parlay Group is a not-for-profit consortium from the telecommunications and IT industries. The Parlay Group's objective is to enable the creation of new telecommunications applications and services, for enterprise and consumer markets, utilizing network features and capabilities. The Parlay Group implements its strategy through a program which includes the creation and maintenance of a set of technical specifications for open network APIs (Application Programming Interfaces). The Parlay Group supports these APIs with member meetings and other events around the world. Membership information is available at: http://www.parlay.org/join/index.asp. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]