Wednesday, February 22, 2006

IMS Forum Launch - Following the Bulls-Eye

Today,the IMS Forum was officially launched, and the press release went out around 10am EST. I wanted to blog about this sooner, but have been tied up all day.

The IMS Forum should be familiar to those who have been in the IP space for a while. Going back a few years, there was the ISC - Int'l Softswitch Consortium. As nextgen matured, ISC shifted focus from softswitches to a broader scope of packet communications, which led to re-branding ISC as IPCC - the Int'l Packet Communications Consortium. Along the way, IPCC absorbed another IP industry group, the VoIP Council, which was started by Neal Shact of Communitech. With IMS being bigger now than softswitch ever was, the IPCC executive saw fit to go with the flow and re-focus again around IMS. Are you with me? So, here we are. Consider that the unofficial history lesson - I'm just the scribe.

Michael Khalilian has been the driving force behind most of these re-inventions, and given the current void of any independent industry body (that's not a standards group)focused on IMS, this move seems to make sense.

I'm blogging about this not only because it's a timely news item, and it's hitting the market while the IMS buzz from 3GSM is still fresh, but also because I've been involved in all of these iterations, including the VoIP Council.

So, I'd just like to draw attention to the news, and welcome the IMS Forum to the IP sector - not that they need my help. You'll be hearing more about the IMS Forum here, as I will be wearing their hat in an industry liaision capacity - more on that later.

No comments: