[SIPForum-discussion] SIP Forum Member News -- August 2008

[Kim Schofield]

SIP FORUM MEMBER NEWS
Volume 1, Issue 1, August 2008

Welcome

Welcome to the re-launched SIP Forum member newsletter, an information
resource designed to update you on Forum activities, Full Member news,
notable industry research, articles and other valuable information. Our goal
is to publish a new issue of this newsletter roughly on a monthly basis,
although this schedule will by necessity be flexible depending on the
quantity and timeliness of news items we have to share with you. Although
this is a work in progress, we hope you enjoy it, and we look forward to
your feedback!

-- Marc Robins, SIP Forum Managing Director and Eric Burger, SIP Forum
Chairman

New Full Member Welcome

Recent membership growth – both Full and Participant Membership -- has been
outstanding, which we believe reflects the maturation of SIP as a critical
enabler for today’s value-added applications and services. Membership growth
is coming from all segments of the IP communications ecosystem, making your
SIP Forum an industry-wide voice for innovation.

We’d like to warmly welcome our latest Full members and recognize them for
the benefit of all SIP Forum members: AudioCodes Ltd., Bandwidth.com, Cable
Television Laboratories, Inc. (CableLabs), CGI Group Inc, Covergence, Cox
Communications, Dialogic Corporation, Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft
Corporation, NEC Unified Solutions Inc., NET, Sonus Networks, Tekelec, and
Telsis Limited.

Compared to the last quarter of 2007, this surge represents a growth
increase of 100%. With a current tally of 45 Full and over 5,000 Participant
members, the SIP Forum has never been stronger, and we are poised to make
significant contributions in 2008 that will be of benefit to all our members
as well as the industry at large. This momentum is continuing, and we look
forward to welcoming new members in upcoming newsletters.


Working Group News

Much of the work produced by the SIP Forum is driven by our three Working
Groups. The most recent news items for each are summarized below.

Marketing Working Group

· SIP Forum Newsletter - led by Managing Director Marc Robins, the Marketing
Working Group has re-launched the SIP Forum Newsletter, with this issue
being the inaugural edition

· White Paper update – we are in the process of producing a White Paper to
articulate the SIP Forum’s vision for enabling innovation to support all
types of rich, multimedia communications services and applications. We
expect to have the White Paper published by the end of this summer.

· SIPconnect Compliance Workshop – building on the success of our workshop
earlier this year at Internet Telephony Expo, we will be conducting another
one at the upcoming TMC event this September 17th, 3pm-6pm, in Room 507..
Click here to find out more about Internet Telephony Expo West 2008, which
will be held in at the Los Angeles Convention Center, Los Angeles, CA.


· SIP Solutions Showcase -- The Forum will be hosting a special pavilion at
the upcoming Internet Telephony Conference and EXPO Fall 2008 in LA, CA,
September 16-18, and this is a very special opportunity for SIP Forum Full
Members to highlight their IP communications solutions and applications
directly on the ITEXPO exhibit floor. The SIP Solutions Showcase will be a
must-see destination for the more than 7,000 attendees expected at ITEXPO.


The SIP Solutions Showcase will focus on innovative SIP-based IP
communications technologies and applications, such as FMC, Presence-based
services and applications, Web 2.0 VoIP Mashups, and SIP Trunking. The SIP
Solutions Showcase also includes a presentation theater, so that sponsoring
companies can conduct rotating presentations right in the showcase on the
trade show floor!

To help defray the costs of participating in the showcase, the Forum will
provide a $2000 subsidy for up to 9 participating Full Member companies,
making this an even more attractive event! The cost to participate is an
extremely modest $3495. For more information and a prospectus on the event,
please contact Marc Robins, SIP Forum Managing Director, at
marc.robins at sipforum.org, or call +1-718-548-7245.

Technical Working Group

· Appointment – We recently announced the TWG co-chairs who are now leading
this Working Group. The co-chairs are Scott Hoffpauir, CTO of BroadSoft, and
Richard Shockey, Director of Technical Staff of NeuStar.

· FoIP Workshop – this is an industry-wide initiative initiated by Dialogic
and open to all Fax-Over-IP technology companies. Details will be
forthcoming on the date and location as well as the specific objectives
defined by the Working Group.

· SIPconnect v1.1 – following the ratification of v1.0 earlier this year,
the Technical Working Group is making good progress on the next iteration.
Click here to read up on the latest developments.

· IETF72 SIP Phone Configuration Workshop: The Forum hosted a well-attended
breakfast meeting during the recent IETF meeting to explore the creation of
a SIP Phone Configuration task group. The plan is for the Forum to provide a
venue and mechanism to drive the non-technical items to move vendor and
service provider product managers, as well as users, to demand the
implementation and deployment of a phone configuration profile.

Test Event (SIPit) Working Group

· SIPit 23– The leading SIP Interoperability Testing event is being hosted
by ETSI, with France Telecom technical support, this coming October 13-17 in
Lannion, France. Click here for more details and to register.


General Industry News

New Report – SIP-Enabled IP PBX and Server Markets

Produced by WinterGreen Research, this extensive report examines SIP’s
impact on the server and IP PBX market, including markets shares, forecasts
and detailed vendor profiles. You can review a summary and table of contents
here.

New SIP Online Tutorial

SearchUnifiedCommunications.com is one of the portals in the TechTarget
family of IT-related websites. They have recently published an online SIP
tutorial, which serves as a handy reference tool for the basics of SIP and
how it is used in the enterprise. You can review the tutorial here.

Top 40 VoIP Products, Applications and Services

Industry portal VoIP-News has published this top 40 rating list, and is a
great summary of the top VoIP offerings for both residential and small
office use.

Enterprise Adoption of Web 2.0 is on the Rise

SIP has an important role to play in the Web 2.0 world and this recent post
in ReadWriteWeb provides some interesting data points and industry
references to support this trend.

Market Forecast and Industry Outlook for SIP Adoption and PBX Deployments

Long-term industry watcher Alan Sulkin has published an extensive analysis
of the trends around SIP adoption and the market transition from legacy to
IP-based telephony. You can review the entire analysis on the No Jitter
portal.

SIPconnect and the Rationale for Widespread Adoption of SIP Trunking

SIP Forum Managing Director Marc Robins contributed this feature story on
SIPconnect and the benefits of SIP Trunking to No Jitter. You can read the
full story here.

Full Member News

Acme Packet Introduces Open Routing Solution Across Fixed and Mobile
Networks

Acme Packet Establishes Role of SBCs in Microsoft’s Office Communications
Server Architecture

Aspect Software Receives Unified Communications Magazine's 2007 Product of
the Year

Covergence Session Manager Certified by IBM for Integration with Tivoli
Netcool and Tivoli Enterprise Monitoring

Data Connection Participation in SIPit22 Interoperability Event

Siemens Enterprise Communications Launch of OpenScape Unified Communications
Server
Tandberg Ships 10,000 Personal Telepresence Units

Tandberg Telepresence Unifies Large Telco after Three-Way Merger

Tekelec Launch of SIP Educational Webinar Series


SIP Forum News

This section features SIP Forum news and announcements that will be of
interest to both the SIP Forum membership and the SIP community at large.


SIP Forum Annual General Meeting Details
Mark Your Calendars! The date and time of the 2008 SIP Forum Annual General
Meeting has been established for September 18, 2008, from 5:30pm-7:00pm at
the Internet Telephony Conference & EXPO in Los Angeles, CA. The meeting
will be held in room 507 in the Los Angeles Convention Center. A detailed
AGM meeting notice will be sent shortly over the discussion list.

Membership Growth Surges, Including Microsoft and CableLabs

Throughout 2008, the SIP Forum has undergone dramatic growth, with the most
notable additions being Microsoft and CableLabs. Full membership now stands
at 45, in addition to over 5,000 individual members. With strong
representation now from both vendors and service providers, we are well
positioned now to advance commercial deployments of SIP in both service
provider and enterprise networks.

SIPit22 Event Results Complete, SIPit23 Coming in October
The most recent SIPit interoperability event was completed at the University
of New Hampshire Interoperability Lab in April 2008. We had participants
from 46 companies spanning 14 countries, with the focus being on advanced
applications as opposed to basic registration and call setup scenarios.

SIP Forum Video Interview Broadcast on IP ConvergenceTV.com

SIP Forum Chairman Eric Burger and Executive Director Marc Robins were
recently interviewed for a video segment by Jon Arnold, Portal Editor of IP
Convergence TV. They discussed SIP’s evolution beyond voice applications as
well as helping service providers address interoperability issues for
multimedia communications. You can view the interview by visiting the IP
ConvergenceTV.com website and searching for the clip in the Videos section.

Telephony Online Podcast with our Executive Director, Marc Robins

Telephony Magazine recently invited the SIP Forum’s Executive Director to
conduct a podcast with News Editor Sarah Reedy. Sarah and Marc discussed
recent developments with SIP as well as the SIP Forum’s role as a proactive
industry body, especially the SIPconnect initiative. You can download the
podcast for listening by clicking here.

SIPconnect Version 1.1 Work Already Underway

A Task Group has been established for Version 1.1 of SIPconnect, and
tangible progress is well underway. Contributions have already been received
from BroadSoft and Siemens, and two recent members – Microsoft and
CableLabs – have committed to making their own contributions to this
initiative. There is also a public repository of SIPconnect 1.1 scoping
documents, and you can review those here.


SIP Forum Board Appointments and Elections

Several notable additions were recently made at the SIP Forum Board level.
At the highest level, Eric Burger, former Deputy CTO of BEA Systems was
elected as Chairman of the Board of Directors. Marc Robins, a leading IP
communications industry consultant and analyst, has been appointed as the
Forum's new Managing Director. Finally, the Forum announced the election of
Mark Enstrom, Product Manager of BroadSoft, Inc. and Richard Shockey,
Director of Technical Staff of NeuStar, Inc. to the SIP Forum Board of
Directors.

The SIP Forum has reached an important milestone by formally adopting
version 1.0 of the SIPconnect Technical Recommendation. This took place in
January 2008, with the unanimous approval of the SIP Forum Board of
Directors, and included the formation of the SIPconnect v.1.1 Task Group. To
learn more, please click here and download the ratified SIPconnect Technical
Recommendation Version 1.0.


Thought Leadership - Recent White Papers and Articles from Full Members

Our Full Member companies regularly produce thought leadership around SIP,
and this section summarizes their most recent contributions.

-- Aspect Software White Paper - Goodbye to CTI, Hello to Unified – examines
how contact centers can take advantage of the openness and ubiquity of IP
protocols and standards like SIP to get better results than relying on
computer telephony integration (CTI)

-- Cbeyond article, Chris Gatch - Why Mobile SIP Will Surpass IMS

-- Cbeyond article, Chris Gatch – SIP Trunking is Poised for Growth in 2008

-- Covergence White Paper - SIP Trunking and the Role of SBCs

-- Ingate article - “Who Is Listening to my Calls?” - a brief comparison of
the potential for security threats between VoIP and traditional telephony



SIP Forum-Sponsored Industry Events Calendar

The SIP Forum is a proud sponsor of the following upcoming industry events.
Some events offer special discounts for SIP Forum members, and are noted in
the summary below.

CIPCC 2008 and NexCom Expo 2008

Date: September 17-19, 2008

Location: Shanghai, China

Price: See website for details


INTERNET TELEPHONY Conference & EXPO West 2008
Date: September 16-18, 2008

Location: Los Angeles, CA

Price: Various options, 20% discount for SIP Forum Members




SIPit23

Date: October 13-17, 2008

Location: Lannion, France

Price: 450 Euros




ICIN 2008

Date: October 20-23, 2008

Location: Bordeaux, France

Price: TBA




IIT VoIP Conference and Expo 2008

Date: October 23-24, 2008

Location: Wheaton, IL

Price: $100 for SIP Forum Members



Full Member Marketing Opportunities
A key benefit of being a Full member of the SIP Forum is the opportunity for
participation in various initiatives we are involved with. Through our
extensive network of industry relationships, the SIP Forum is in a position
to create valuable forums for our Full members, such as speaking
engagements, editorial content or exhibiting at industry events. Please
contact our Managing Director, Marc Robins to learn more about these special
marketing opportunities at marc.robins at sipforum.org or call +1-718-548-7245.



Member Roster

Our current roster of 45 Full members is listed below, and you can read more
about each one by clicking here.

3Com; Acme Packet; Alcatel-Lucent; Aricent; Aspect; AudioCodes Ltd.; Avaya;
Bandwidth.com; BEA Systems, Inc.; Bluenote Networks; BroadSoft, Cbeyond,
Cable Television Laboratories, Inc. (CableLabs); CGI Group Inc; Cisco
Systems; Covergence; Cox Communications; Data Connection Limited (DCL);
Dialogic Corporation; Digium; Ericsson; IBM; Hewlett-Packard; Ingate Systems
AB; Intertex Data AB; IP Unity Glenayre; McLeodUSA Inc.; Microsoft
Corporation; NEC Unified Solutions Inc.; NET; NeuStar, NextPoint Networks;
Nokia; Oracle; Polycom; RADVision; Siemens, SOLINET GmbH; SNOM; Sonus
Networks; Tandberg; Tecnomen; Tekelec; Telsis Limited; University

*****


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