The Unified Communication Interoperability Forum (UCI Forum) is a non-profit ecosystem of communications technology vendors with a shared goal to bring the promise of truly unified communications to life. Any hardware or software solution providers, service providers, or network operators are encouraged to join the forum. The UCI Forum’s vision is to enable interoperability of UC hardware and software across enterprises, service providers, and consumer clouds, as a means of protecting customer’s existing investments, simplifying their transition to more extended UC networks, and generating incremental business opportunity for all stakeholders in the ecosystem.

Unlike existing standards organizations focused on a single media protocol, the UCI Forum aspires to cross the multiple boundaries of interoperability using existing standards rather than creating new ones. The work of the alliance may include:

• Publishing specifications and guidelines
• Defining test methodologies and certification programs
• Interfacing with other standards groups
• Liaising with regulatory governmental bodies responsible for UC

Today, unified communications is a vibrant, but fragmented, community. Multiple analysts and market makers have pointed to the need for cross-vendor interoperability to move the market forward. The UCI Forum plans to build upon existing standards and technologies and to ensure that any new guidelines developed are truly standards-based. We are committed to the effort because we believe inter-vendor collaboration based on open standards is THE way to drive interoperability and bring the dream of truly unified communications to life.

The UCI Forum will meet this need by bringing unified communications hardware and software solutions providers, service providers and network operators together into one global ecosystem with a common goal. UCI Forum members will collaborate to ensure products and solutions from different manufacturers and service providers work together seamlessly, enabling businesses greater choice and flexibility when deploying UC and a much better end-user experience. << Learn more