The UCIF is dedicated to providing customers with standards-based, cross-vendor interoperability of UC hardware and software solutions that span enterprises and the service provider cloud to enable organisations and consumers to seamlessly communicate and collaborate.
Recognising that interoperability based on open standards is a key requirement to drive UC further into today’s enterprises, UCIF members will collaborate to facilitate the widespread UC adoption and deliver a reliable and rich UC experience from mobile, to desktop, to immersive telepresence solutions.
“Polycom’s heritage is providing customers with the ability to communicate without boundaries through standards-based, open collaboration solutions,” said Andy Miller, Polycom president and CEO. “As the cornerstone of our Polycom Open Collaboration Network strategy, we deliver an innovative portfolio of high-quality, platform-agnostic voice and video solutions that interoperate with the leading UC platforms, providing flexibility and protecting the investments of our customers. The UCIF sole purpose is to drive open, standards-based solutions, and to squelch any efforts to promote proprietary solutions against the interests of our customers. We’re delighted to be a founder of UCIF and its noble mission to promote interoperability throughout the UC industry.”
“Interoperability is not only critical to customer success for deploying unified communications but intrinsic to the delivery of legacy, current and next-generation UC tools, services and infrastructure from multiple vendors. Until now, efforts to achieve interoperability have appeared ad-hoc, which has given customers little assurance that their existing and planned investments are protected and will deliver the value promised,” said Jonathan Edwards, research analyst, Unified Communications, IDC. “I’m delighted to see Polycom take a leading role by joining the UCIF. Together, these companies will help drive industry-wide adoption of open standards and develop programmes that put accountability on the vendors and provide peace of mind and investment protection for end customers – something that will surely accelerate adoption of UC technologies.”
The UCIF will utilise existing industry standards and define new standards to eliminate the gaps between current protocols and broad-based interoperability. UCIF membership is open to hardware and software solution providers, service providers and network operators. For more information or to join the UCIF, visit www.ucif.org.