UCStrategies Experts Discuss the UCIF

25 May 2010

In this podcast, the UCStrategies Expert team discusses the Unified Communications Interoperability Forum (UCIF). The UCIF is an open alliance of technology leaders working together to fully realize the potential of Unified Communications.

The expert panel includes Blair Pleasant, Don Van Doren, Michael Finneran, Art Rosenberg, Dave Michels, Lisa Pierce, David Yedwab, Marty Parker, and Steve Leaden.

Also on UCStrategies.com on this topic:

Blair Pleasant: Hi, this Blair Pleasant with UCStrategies and today for our weekly Industry Buzz podcast, we are going to talk about the UCIF-The Unified Communications Interoperability Forum. And this forum was kicked off last week; basically it's an open forum, whose mission it is to drive Unified Communications hardware and software interoperability and to "work collectively to develop solutions specifications, reference implementations, best practices, implementation guidelines, test tools and compliance programs in relation to industry needs." Some of us were at the kick-off briefing and/or dinner last week. We want to talk a little bit today about the UCIF...what we hope it's going to accomplish...what some of the challenges are...and what we see happening for the UCIF. Don, you wrote a really great article last week. Do you want to kick it off and talk about it a bit?

Don Van Doren: Sure, Blair thanks very much. First all I want to congratulate UCIF and the industry in general, for making this happen. I think this is an absolutely crucial kind of an activity going forward. We have seen other forums in the past, some of which have done very well, like our alliance perhaps is an interesting example. And we have also learned from history as I wrote in my article...that sometimes these things don't work so well. And I think that the key of course, is in the details. And I really think that the UCIF is off to a good start.

The three things that I have identified that I think are really crucial are having open membership and clearly they have issued invitations to all the players in the industry as I understand it, which I think is laudable and very important. I think it's very important that we have an appropriate charter in place and again, I think by and large this has clearly been done. And finally, the most important thing of all these things, I believe is serving what I'll call "member commitment." You might want to have some others come back and talk about this too. But, I think that the notion of having people really committed to making some changes here is going to be important.

Just a couple of words on the charter, I think that UCIF has very appropriately stayed away from trying to get into the standards business. They are going to use standards that are developed, and they are going to basically push forward on passing certification, which I think is absolutely essential. I think that looking at things like Wi-Fi Alliance is a great example of how that kind of a model worked extremely well. I think that the one cautionary thing I would note is that of course, many of the early members who have been announced on UCIF are part of one particular camp. They all have some association and close affiliation with Microsoft. There is nothing wrong with that and as I mentioned before, open invitations have gone out. What is really important is that we get other kinds of opinions in here, as well. I think that clearly one of important challenges is to make this into a truly open body where different points of view can be represented at the table. But I think it's a great start and there are a lot of good things going forward.

Blair Pleasant: I definitely agree Don. I am really wondering why some of the vendors who haven't joined yet, haven't...because they are not going to? Or because they just haven't gotten around to it yet, because they have to go through their legal departments and various organizational issues? So, I would really put the question to Cisco, Avaya, IBM, and companies like that...why haven't you joined yet and are you going to?...and if not, why? Because I think it really is important to have a full industry representation and right now it seems that UCIF is really more on the video and telepresence and teleconferencing side, and not so much representing telephony vendors. So, I would really like to see more of the voice and telephony vendors step in and be more a part of this. Dave and Michael and Art...you all wrote really good articles last week, as well. Does someone want to jump in?

Michael Finneran: The analogy of the Wi-Fi Alliance comes up regularly, but I am not so sure how appropriate it is to what the UCIF is trying to do. Like Don, I wholeheartedly agree that this is a major step forward for the UC industry. But, with the Wi-Fi Alliance we are looking at something much different. First, the Wi-Fi standards are much simpler. Essentially, it's a matter of making wireless devices work over a local area network. And, also with the Wi-Fi Alliance, basically everyone knew that they had to collaborate. The term, "Wi-Fi Certified," has now taken on far more importance than compatibility with the IEEE Standards, the 802.11 standards. So in essence, the Wi-Fi Alliance is almost a foregone conclusion. You had to join. You had to support the standards, because there was no one who could provide all the various devices that someone would need. We have a similar "no man is an island," issue with UC. But still, it's a much more challenging and a much different market dynamic than we ever saw in Wi-Fi.

Don Van Doren: I don't disagree with you...it's a much more challenging issue. But at the same time, I think the model is something that has worked extremely well for it and I would like to see us move toward something similar to that in terms of what UC will be. Clearly, in my opinion, we are going to need some of the same kind of collaboration in order to really achieve the potential that unified communication offers. That's why I bring up the model-as an interesting example of what could be done.

Michael Finneran: I just hope they are as successful as the Wi-Fi Alliance was, because they have just done a bang-up job in supporting wireless LAN technology.

Art Rosenberg: I have got to agree with you, but UC is not just about connectivity, it's about interoperability with applications and people and mix and match. Which is much more complicated in terms of interoperability. And I think if they can set up the mechanism for the open testing and certification...then all these future applications that will take advantage of UC can be there to be tested and validated and they are going to be constantly changing anyway. So, it's an ongoing process and I think they have to have that kind of framework to move forward.

Blair Pleasant: I think that is a really good point, as far as interoperability. It's going to take a long time to really get there. While that is one of the goals, it's not something that is going to happen in the short term, so it's really important to understand that this is going to be an ongoing effort and some of the interoperability is going to take a little bit longer. So I think right now that they are starting with certain areas, like telepresence and video and over time more of the mix and match interoperability will happen. But, it's certainly not going to happen in the short term.

Dave Michels: I think that's a very good point, that it does take a lot of time. I am looking at the headlines just over the last few days and we have the SIP Forum turning up its efforts to get fax to work over SIP...joining forces with I3. It is just amazing that how long this stuff really takes and the UCIF is clearly initially here at video. And the question you asked earlier, "Why hasn't Cisco joined?" Basically I can come up with three reasons, because if they are the only ones missing from the video front. One, maybe they will, as you said, maybe it just takes time for them to process the invitation and understand what the opportunity is. But, two, maybe because they don't need to, maybe they feel that interoperability isn't their primary concern right now and they have a relatively significant market share that would validate that point. And than the third reason that I can come up with is I am not sure that they consider Microsoft, as one of the primary vendors behind the UCIF, I am not sure that Cisco would agree that Microsoft should be heading up that party. Microsoft solutions are very proprietary, they are using their own codecs, they are not using SIP end points, they're requiring exchange of the messaging platform on their OCS platform. So maybe Cisco decided to just watch from the sidelines for a while. I would really like it if Cisco would make some sort of public comment about it, but they haven't.

Lisa Pierce: Let's talk about why this is happening now. I think this all has to do ultimately with what's going to happen with scaleable video coding. Which, anyone who has taken any time looking at it, and I have been spending the last two months looking at it...if I say it's going to take over the world, I am only slightly exaggerating in terms of its potential to really put video conferencing and video technology in the hands of hundreds of millions of people in a cost effective basis. It's that important. Right now, SVC, as they are known, are highly proprietary, even though there is an initial standard as part of H264 and some vendors are trying to, especially if you are not part of the telepresence interoperability protocol group, which is really focusing on interworking with Cisco's telepresence, you really do have to do something else. This is one effort. There is an effort on the carrier side for those of you who are interested, another work by the I3 Forum, they haven't announced anything yet officially related to their work on helping video conferencing service providers interoperate, but that work is going on now.

David Yedwab: Just a quick comment on two things-one is a question and the other is a comment. Let's remember that one of the two major modes of communication in video is voice and if we get voice working in video conferencing appropriately, we will have solved an awful lot of problems. My early concern is with the correct concern about time and how long it's going to take to get things done. I am wondering whether we think this is going to help, speed up, or slow down the uptake from the market. And it would probably be very good to get some user involvement within UCIF to see what is going on.

Marty Parker: I support what you just said and I think it's been a great dialogue. My comment going back to the question of who is in the picture here and how they're contributing, I think it really gets down to a basic issue of economic interest. If the UCIF can both keep its doors open, you know not to make a pun, but keep its doors open to contributions and participation...as I think my partner Don Vandoren highlighted in his article and his earlier comments...and can do it in such a way that it is more economical for a vendor to participate in the UCIF than it is for a vendor to form peer-to-peer proprietary relationships, which is a typical business development model for most high tech companies, then UCIF will be a roaring success. It has to be that it is easier to come to UCIF and get something down, than it is to go have the one-on-one memo of understanding-types of relationships on a peer-to-peer basis, which is what's been happening literally from the beginning of technology over decades, if not centuries. So, I think the UCIF really has the ball in this case to continue to encourage people in spite of whoever is in the room on day one. To continue to encourage people to come to the room, bring their ideas, and help them create economically attractive solutions. If they don't do that then economic interests will drive people elsewhere. If they do it, it will become what they wish it to be.

Blair Pleasant: Great points.

David Yedwab: I have a quick question for any of you who may know more about it. Have any decisions on early lab sites been made? Are they planning on doing it within some of the founders or are they doing it within a university lab, as like SIP Forum or some of the other forums are doing?

Michael Finneran: When we spoke to them originally they seemed to indicate that they will be using outside independent laboratories, much like you do with the Wimax Forum and the Wi-Fi Alliance; that's what they said at least at the outset.

Blair Pleasant: They said they are going to provide the tools, but a third party is going to be responsible for doing the testing and certification.

Steve Leaden: I think they are looking at some very strong points here in interoperability with standards and certifications. I think it definitely has some teeth in it. I think as an example, Polycom over the years has proven that by using SIP Standards and H.323 Standards that they have been able to take on a significant amount of standards-based technology, conference, speaker phones being one in the digital space, IP speaker phones being, as well as their entire product line, in the IP space, as well as H.323 and continuing to be the number one slot in the video space. And I think what makes this particularly challenging, I think everybody has their work cut out for them as well...it can be successful. I think this particular area, especially when it comes to the word telecom, is rooted in a proprietary industry. So, I think just with the word proprietary going forward, I think that's probably the largest uphill battle that the forum has to be engaged with, as well as agreeing even on standards. Microsoft, for example, doesn't comply with the, or works with...but has their own proprietary Codecs relative to their own voice over IP UC standards. So, it's interesting what is going to happen and I think they have a challenge, but it's great to see I think a forum starting with some teeth in it, as well as having some you know...brand names to start as well as it expanding. And I think that with the idea of new companies gaining traction in our space...Microsoft being one that didn't exist five years ago...I think everybody really has to pay attention to where the industry is going toward an open standard space.

Blair Pleasant: I think the concensus from our group is that this is a great effort and we really applaud the UCIF for doing this, but there are definitely challenges and we will have to wait and see who comes to the table and what actually comes about because of this forum, but certainly I think we're all cautiously optimistic and hoping this is really going to help the UC industry come together and grow and benefit ultimately the customers, which is what it's all about. So, thank you everybody and we'll talk next week.