The Unified Communications Interoperability Forum (UCIF) is a

non-profit A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...

alliance between communications technology vendors. It was announced on May 19, 2010, with the vision to maximize the interoperability of UC based on existing standards. Founding members of UCIF were HP,

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washin ...

Polycom Poly, formerly Polycom, a part of HP Inc., is an American multinational corporation that develops video, voice and content collaboration and communication technology. Polycom was co-founded in 1990 by Brian L Hinman and Jeffrey Rodman. In 2018 ...

Logitech Logitech International S.A. ( ; often shortened to Logi) is a Swiss multinational manufacturer of computer peripherals and software, with headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, and Newark, California. The company has offices throughout Europe, ...

/ LifeSize Communications, and

Juniper Networks Juniper Networks, Inc. is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. The company develops and markets networking products, including routers, switches, network management software, network security product ...

.https://www.pcworld.com/article/196640/collaboration_vendors_join_for_interoperability.html On July 28, 2014, UCIF merged with International Multimedia Telecommunications Consortium (UMTC) into one consortium.

Unified communications

''Unified communications'' (UC) is the integration of real-time communication services such as

instant messaging Instant messaging (IM) technology is a type of online chat allowing real-time text transmission over the Internet or another computer network. Messages are typically transmitted between two or more parties, when each user inputs text and trigge ...

(chat), presence information, Telephony (including

IP telephony Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also called IP telephony, is a method and group of technologies for the delivery of voice communications and multimedia sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. The terms Internet ...

video conferencing Videotelephony, also known as videoconferencing and video teleconferencing, is the two-way or multipoint reception and transmission of audio signal, audio and video signals by people in different locations for Real-time, real time communication. ...

call control In telephony, call control refers to the software within a telephone switch that supplies its central function. Call control decodes addressing information and routes telephone calls from one end point to another. It also creates the features that ...

, and

speech recognition Speech recognition is an interdisciplinary subfield of computer science and computational linguistics that develops methodologies and technologies that enable the recognition and translation of spoken language into text by computers with the ...

with non real-time communication services such as

unified messaging Unified messaging (or UM) is a business term for the integration of different electronic messaging and communications media ( e-mail, SMS, fax, voicemail, video messaging, etc.) technologies into a single interface, accessible from a variety of ...

(integrated

voicemail A voicemail system (also known as voice message or voice bank) is a computer-based system that allows users and subscribers to exchange personal voice messages; to select and deliver voice information; and to process transactions relating to ind ...

e-mail Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic (digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" meant ...

SMS Short Message/Messaging Service, commonly abbreviated as SMS, is a text messaging service component of most telephone, Internet and mobile device systems. It uses standardized communication protocols that let mobile devices exchange short text ...

, and

fax Fax (short for facsimile), sometimes called telecopying or telefax (the latter short for telefacsimile), is the telephonic transmission of scanned printed material (both text and images), normally to a telephone number connected to a printer o ...

). UC is not a single product, but a set of products that provides a consistent unified user interface and user experience across multiple devices and media types. UC also refers to a trend to offer business process integration, i.e. to simplify and integrate all forms of communications in view to optimize

business process A business process, business method or business function is a collection of related, structured activities or tasks by people or equipment in which a specific sequence produces a service or product (serves a particular business goal) for a parti ...

es and reduce the response time, manage flows and eliminate device and media dependencies.

Members

The original founding members were HP,

LifeSize Lifesize is a video and audio telecommunications company in the United States which provides high definition videoconferencing endpoints and accessories, touchscreen conference room phones and a cloud-based video collaboration platform. Lifesiz ...

Communications,

, and

. Other members were

Acme Packet Acme Packet was a company based in Bedford Bedford is a market town in Bedfordshire, England. At the 2011 Census, the population of the Bedford built-up area (including Biddenham and Kempston) was 106,940, making it the second-largest set ...

Huawei Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. ( ; ) is a Chinese multinational technology corporation headquartered in Shenzhen, Guangdong, China. It designs, develops, produces and sells telecommunications equipment, consumer electronics and various smar ...

Aspect
AudioCodes,

Broadcom Broadcom Inc. is an American designer, developer, manufacturer and global supplier of a wide range of semiconductor and infrastructure software products. Broadcom's product offerings serve the data center, networking, software, broadband, wirel ...

BroadSoft BroadSoft, Inc. is a communication software and service provider that was acquired by Cisco Systems in 2018. BroadSoft was founded in 1998 and completed its initial public offering in 2010, and was headquartered in Maryland. It partners with carri ...

Brocade Communications Systems Brocade is an American technology company specializing in storage networking products, now a subsidiary of Broadcom Inc. The company is known for its Fibre Channel storage networking products and technology. Prior to the acquisition, the compan ...

, ClearOne, Jabra,

Plantronics Plantronics, Inc. is an American electronics company — branded Poly to reflect its dual Plantronics and Polycom heritage — producing audio communications equipment for business and consumers. Its products support unified communications, mob ...

RADVISION Radvision was a provider of video conferencing and telepresence technologies over IP and wireless networks based in Tel Aviv, Israel. It offered development and test suites for voice and video over IP communications. Radvision was acquired by A ...

Siemens Enterprise Communications Unify, is an Atos company headquartered in Munich, Germany and is present in over 100 countries. The company provides software-based enterprise unified communications including voice, Web collaboration, video conferencing and contact center, netw ...

, Teliris,

Vidyo Vidyo, Inc., founded as Layered Media, now part of Enghouse systems provides software-based collaboration technology and product-based visual communication products. The company's VidyoConferencing products are the first in the videoconferencing i ...

, and VOSS Solutions. At launch, news outlets drew attention to the absence of

Cisco Cisco Systems, Inc., commonly known as Cisco, is an American-based multinational digital communications technology conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develops, manufactures, and sells networking hardware, ...

and

Avaya Avaya Holdings Corp., often shortened to Avaya (), is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Durham, North Carolina, that provides cloud communications and workstream collaboration services. The company's platform inclu ...

from the member list, though UCIF has invited them to join as early members. On July 28, 2014, UCIF merged with International Multimedia Telecommunications Consortium (IMTC) into one consortium.

References

{{reflist

External links

UCIF Official website

IMTC Official website
Human–computer interaction Teleconferencing Videotelephony Organizations established in 2010 Organizations disestablished in 2014

Unified communications

Members

See also

References

External links