The Consortium for Audiographics Teleconferencing Standards and the Multimedia Communications Community of Interest have announced a merger to form the International Multimedia Teleconferencing Consortium Inc. Based in San Ramon, California, the new consortium’s goal is promotion of the creation and adoption of international standards for all aspects of multimedia teleconferencing and to bring together a wide variety of players in the multimedia teleconferencing industry. The consortium’s members included MCI Communications Corp, Hewlett-Packard Co, the Society for International Transport by Air, Sun Solutions, GPT Video Systems Ltd and Vivo Software Inc among others, while the Community of Interest numbered Motorola Inc, Cable & Wireless Plc, Deutsche Bundespost Telekom, L M Ericsson Telefon AB and Ing C Olivetti SpA among its members.
Mobilising
Certain organisations, like British Telecommunications Plc, PictureTel Corp and Northern Telecom Ltd, had a foot in both camps. Prior to the merger, both the old consortium and the Community of Interest focussed on different aspects of multimedia teleconferencing. The consortium, formed in 1993, was geared to mobilising industry support behind international standards for multipoint audiographics data and document conferencing, while the Community of Interest also formed in 1993, was formed to accelerate the acceptance of desktop multimedia collaborative applications worldwide and to promote the use of open standards for interoperability. According to the new consortium, the coming together has been to leverage both parties’ commitment to open standards for multimedia conferencing. Initially, the new consortium will contribute to and promote two suites of International Telecommunications Union standards – H.320 and T.120. The organisation says that it is open to all interested parties. A voting membership costs $5,000, with non-voting membership – geared to educational institutions and government – costing $1,000.
