Ubiquity Software, one of the most prolific developers of IP Multimedia Subsystem (News - Alert) applications, launched the Ubiquity Developer Network (UDN), which it claims is the industry's first community of developers, partners and customers with a common interest in exploiting the commercial opportunities for new services based on the Session Initiation Protocol (News - Alert) (SIP) standard.

 

When paired with its standards-based, carrier-grade SIP Application Server (SIP A/S), UDN is designed to shorten time-to-market and expand the availability of a broader range of new multimedia Internet applications, such as Voice over IP, multiplayer gaming, and location-based services.

 

SIP has become accepted as a mature and commercially-viable Internet Protocol (IP) standard that is being widely adopted by global carriers and large enterprises that plan to deploy a new generation of converged services. It serves as the basis for the IMS architecture, providing the session controls to help IP services to bridge the lucrative world of the cellular operators.

 

“UDN is the first such community to connect Service Providers with developers in this type of open forum. UDN is filling a valuable role in the industry by fostering creation of new multimedia IP services. No other forum leverages the skills of ISVs, technology partners, systems integrators and developers to create this new generation of SIP-based applications,” said Ian McLaren, President and CEO of Ubiquity Software, in a statement.

 

Ubiquity has established a Web portal for the UDN online community at https://developer.ubiquitysoftware.com/.

 

Charter members include Borderware, Cantata, Convedia, CGI, Counterpath, Followap, Huawei, HP, JBoss, Magpie, MDS, Movial, United Online, New Heights, Nokia (News - Alert), Qualphone, Radvision, Sandcherry and SipStorm.

 

The worldwide market for SIP infrastructure and software is expected to exceed $5.5 billion by 2007 with a compound annual growth rate of 36.1 percent according to estimates by Venture Development Corporation (VDC). According to VDC's report, factors driving the SIP market include replacement of the existing infrastructure by service providers and large enterprises; the explosive growth of VoIP; and the growth of new applications such as new presence, location, and video applications.

 

“UDN certainly represents a great initiative that will spearhead the development of next-generation SIP-based applications within the IMS framework,” said Ronald F. Gruia, Senior Telecom Analyst with Frost & Sullivan. “By gathering all the members of the value chain, UDN will be able to both combine and create new IMS services that will lead to higher ARPU for fixed, mobile and cable operators.”

 

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Robert Liu is Executive Editor at TMCnet. Previously, he was Executive Editor at Jupitermedia and has also written for CNN, A&E, Dow Jones and Bloomberg. For more articles, please visit Robert Liu's columnist page.