VOSS Solutions has announced its adopter level membership in the recently formed Unified Communications Interoperability Forum (UCIF), a non-profit alliance of worldwide technology leaders working together to fully realize the potential of unified communications (UC). The UCIF is dedicated to enabling standards-based, cross-vendor interoperability of UC hardware and software across enterprises, service providers and consumer clouds and is designed to enable global businesses to be more productive.

Recognizing that seamless interoperability based on open standards is one of the key requirements to drive UC further into today’s enterprises, UCIF members will collaborate to overcome existing interoperability barriers to widespread UC adoption and deliver a reliable and rich UC experience, with the goal of propelling worldwide enterprise UC adoption. Founding members of the UCIF include HP, Juniper Networks, Logitech / LifeSize Communications, Microsoft and Polycom.

Mike Frayne, CEO at VOSS Solutions, commented; “We are delighted to become part of this important industry organization. VOSS prides itself in its open architectural approach that inherently supports UC interoperability. Today VOSS offers a fulfillment management system that provides a “single pane of glass” view of the multi-vendor UC environment. VOSS orchestrates the provisioning and activation of UC services across a range of UC vendors and network vendors, maintaining multiple data stores and the linkage between User-Device-Service-Network, all in real-time. VOSS eases migration and the rapid roll out of new services, and radically reduces operational expenditure and IT support costs.”

“Interoperability is not only critical to customer success for deploying unified communications but intrinsic to the delivery of legacy, current and next-generation UC 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 VOSS Solutions take a leading role by joining the UCIF. Together, these companies will help drive industry wide adoption of open standards and develop programs 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 work with existing industry standards, identifying and filling the gaps between current protocols and interoperability issues that have stalled broad adoption and deployment of valuable communications methods. 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.

About the Unified Communications Interoperability Forum
The Unified Communications Interoperability Forum (UCIF) 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. The UCIF’s vision is to enable interoperability of standards-based UC hardware and software across enterprises, service providers, and consumer clouds, as a means of generating incremental business opportunity for all stakeholders in the ecosystem and of increasing the business use of UC technologies and services. The UCIF creates and tests interoperability profiles, implementation guidelines and best practices for interoperability between UC products and existing communications and business applications. Visit www.ucif.org to learn more.

About VOSS Solutions
VOSS, a leader in service delivery software, helps organizations meet their rapidly changing Unified Communications (UC) and IP telephony (IPT) requirements. The VOSS real time, centralized and fully automated UC service delivery platform addresses the challenges involved in managing the entire UC lifecycle: Day-0 initial design; Day-1 build and deployment; Day-2 support and administration; Day-3 upgrade and scaling, enabling its customers to operate highly flexible UC and IPT networks. By simplifying business processes and removing technical complexity, VOSS increases productivity, speeds implementation, cuts costs, and provides a platform to launch new UC services.

With offices in the USA, UK, mainland Europe, Middle East and South Africa, VOSS is funded by Eden Ventures, XAnge Private Equity and PE Investments. VOSS customers include prominent global service providers, niche managed service providers, and large enterprises. Visit www.voss-solutions.com to learn more.