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IMTC and UCI Forum Announce MergerSAN RAMON, Calif. --(Business Wire)-- The International Multimedia Telecommunication Consortium (IMTC) and the Unified Communications (News - Alert) Interoperability Forum (UCI Forum) today announced the merger of their organizations into a single consortium. The new organization will operate under the IMTC banner and brings together the industry's two leading technology consortia focused on promoting and facilitating the use of interoperable video collaboration and unified communications solutions worldwide, based on open international standards. The combined organization will benefit from the unified communications work UCI Forum has done in defining common customer scenarios and leveraging industry standards to create interoperability testing and certification programs, and from the work done in the IMTC's collaborative, end-to-end interoperability testing events focused on end-user usability requirements and experiences. The combined organization will continue to provide an open forum that brings together industry-leading organizations and key individuals from internet, software, hardware and telecommunications companies to test interoperability between products and services, identify and remove technical barriers, deliver results to improve performance and enhance end-user experiences that expedite adoption. IMTC will continue to maintain and expand its collaboration with standards development organizations to align with existing and emerging industry standards in order to test, promote and ensure interoperability across multiple vendor internet, software and hardware implementations in embedded or software-based devices and/or cloud-based services. "The combined organization integrates the experience, expertise, drive and passion of the IMTC and UCI Forum memberships in order to enhance our capacity to deliver better results in a broader array of technical areas than either organization could have done on its own. In addition, the new organization will be able to communicate to the market more clearly and provide a much wider collaborative industry platform to improve overall effectiveness in its deliverables," said Anatoli Levine, IMTC President and Director of Product Management at Radvision, an Avaya (News - Alert) company. "For the first time ever, most of the market-leading companies specializing in internet, software, hardware and communication services are coming together under a single, technology-based consortia." The efforts of the combined organization will provide an open and extendable platform to inspire its international community of developers from IP communication companies to work together to solve the sticky problems associated with providing endto-end interoperability in the areas of unified communications and video collaboration. By focusing efforts on solving these problems, IMTC is in turn solving problems for the collective end-user communities, improving the users' experience and driving greater commercial adoption of these technologies worldwide. "The combined knowledge and expertise from both the IMTC and UCI Forum member participants will create a strong, progressive 'center of excellence' to better serve the unified communications community at large," said Matt Collier, UCI Forum President and LifeSize/Logitech (News - Alert) Vice President of Sales and Business Development. "By integrating the best work practices of both organizations, we are able to better connect the interests of the entire ecosystem in a collaborative environment that stimulates innovation, promotes interoperability and advocates the value of unified communications and video collaboration." Over the next several months, IMTC and UCI Forum management will focus on completing all remaining merger activities, including finalizing and initiating the new Board of Directors, continuing the day-to-day operations of each organization, transitioning current members and recruiting new members into the organization, leveraging and transitioning existing liaisons, establishing new alliances with standards bodies and industry associations, building out certification and interoperability testing functions, and continuing existing technical working group activities of both organizations under the IMTC's working group structure. About the International Multimedia Telecommunications Consortium (News - Alert) (IMTC) The IMTC is an industry-leading, non-profit organization whose mission is to promote and facilitate the development and use of interoperable, real-time, multimedia telecommunication products and services based on open international standards. The IMTC hosts interoperability testing events and demonstrations throughout the world. IMTC has hosted numerous events to test IMS, VoLTE, SIP, H.323, 3G-324M, TIP, 3G PS Streaming, and other Voice over IP products and services with each other. The IMTC Board of Directors includes representatives from AT&T, Cisco Systems, Ericsson, Fraunhofer, Hewlett-Packard, Huawei (News - Alert), Intel, LifeSize Communications, Microsoft, Nokia, Polycom, Radvision, an Avaya Company, Qualcomm, Samsung, Unify and Vidyo. Membership is open to any interested party, including vendors of audio, document, and video conferencing hardware and software; academic institutions; government agencies; and non-profit organizations. The IMTC is making "Rich Media happen Anywhere, Anytime." Further information can be found at http://www.imtc.org. About the Unified Communications Interoperability Forum The Unified Communications Interoperability Forum (UCI Forum) is a non-profit alliance of worldwide communications technology leaders working together to realize the potential of unified communications (UC) by increasing efficiency, decreasing implementation costs and improving the interoperability experience for UC customers. Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook or visit www.uciforum.org and the UCI Forum blog to learn more.
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