Thank you for your comments and thoughts. We are in agreement on the need for interoperability in the UC market. In fact, I believe that the UC address market will expand when the type of UC interoperability that Marty discusses in his post is realized. Were we differ is on how the industry delivers it. Without Cisco, Avaya, ShoreTel, Mitel, NEC et in the UCIF it will have marginal impact. The trade show Interop provided a great gathering place and demonstration of TCP/IP interoperability. The UC industry needs such an interoperability platform.

Nick

For example, if a company with Microsoft Office Communications Server to support their desktops and mobile devices has a partner or client using, say, Avaya one-X to support their desktops and mobile devices, they want to be able to communicate across organization boundaries effectively and economically.

If some media translation has to happen at the edges, that’s each vendor’s accountability; and if some vendor’s translations are too costly, that vendor will be pressured to conform, or lower the price.

As to video interoperation, Jeffrey Rodman (CTO of Polycom) pretty well says it in his post. But with the bandwidth loads of video, most businesses will prefer to solve problems at the IM, text (e-mail) and voice bandwidth levels if they can.

In any case, those who choose not to join every possible interoperability forum are missing out on opportunities to serve a broader market than just their existing customer base.