Forum will enable interoperability of Unified Communications hardware and software through inter-vendor openness and collaboration

New York, NY (May 19, 2010) - Teliris Telepresence today announced its membership in the newly 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.

Teliris joins founding members HP, Juniper Networks, Logitech / LifeSize Communications, Microsoft and Polycom, as well as Acme Packet, Aspect, AudioCodes, Broadcom, BroadSoft, Brocade, ClearOne, Jabra, Plantronics, RADVISION, Siemens Enterprise Communications. 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.

"Teliris fully supports the UCIF mission and strongly believes that open interoperability standards are critical in creating and maintaining the simple, natural meeting experience that defines telepresence - regardless of vendor, system size or deployment location," said Marc Trachtenberg, Teliris CEO and Co-Founder. "We look forward to joining this group of industry leaders in the quest to achieve real telepresence and overall UC interoperability."

"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 Teliris 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 Teliris Telepresence:

Teliris develops and implements the world's most widely deployed fully managed telepresence and collaboration solutions, realistically replicating the human dynamics of an in-person meeting experience. Through its 6G platform and unique intellectual property, Teliris has radically simplified the acquisition, deployment and operating costs of telepresence, breaking new ground in adoption and reach of the technology. Teliris has deployments in over 50 countries with the largest installed base of Global 2000 companies. Headquartered in New York and London, the company is the leading innovator in agile telepresence with end-to-end integration, market-leading 99%+ availability guarantee and interoperability with all standards-based telepresence and traditional videoconferencing systems.

About the Unified Communications Interoperability Forum:

The Unified Communications Interoperability Forum (UCIF) is a non-profit alliance of worldwide communications 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.