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The Service Availability Forum Reaches New Ground with the Addition of 7 New Members in 2003

Growing Membership Fosters the Ongoing Development of Open Specifications for Carrier-grade Communications and Computing Infrastructure


PORTLAND, Oregon, Jan. 15, 2004 -  The Service Availability Forum™, an industry coalition of premier communications and computing companies, today announced the addition of seven new members – growing to a total of 29 members in 2003. The Service Availability Forum (SA Forum) drives industry adoption of open interface specifications that will benefit independent software vendors and equipment, platform and service providers. SA Forum’s growth underscores the industry-wide movement from proprietary systems to an open, commercial-off-the-shelf production model.

The seven new members, ranging from leading service provider vendors to data management software developers and telecommunications equipment manufacturers, underline the growing support for the SA Forum. Each company brings invaluable knowledge to SA Forum and strong understanding of the communications and computing industry. Together, new and existing SA Forum members create and promote open programming interface specifications that will help facilitate the fast delivery of dependable, differentiated, cost-effective communications infrastructure.

"The addition of these industry leaders demonstrates SA Forum’s drive and the industry’s commitment to promote the open Service Availability specifications," said Manfred Reitenspiess, president of the Service Availability Forum. "SA Forum depends on its members’ domain expertise to create open specifications for industry-wide adoption that will ultimately accelerate time-to-market and lower the cost of developing highly available solutions for communications equipment and applications."

Newest members to join the SA Forum include Oracle Corporation, Ericsson, American MegaTrends, Phoenix Technologies, Augmentix Corporation, Clovis Solutions and OSA Technologies. The SA Forum welcomes additional industry participants interested in developing open specifications and promoting industry-wide adoption.

During this period of growth, the SA Forum now includes companies headquartered in the Asia Pacific region, Europe and North America. This continued momentum underscores the universal support for and global collaboration underway to create the open, carrier-grade specifications that meet the needs of the communications and computing community worldwide.

"The growth of the Service Availability Forum indicates the premium that companies are placing on service quality," said Reitenspiess. "As Internet and mobile communications and commerce become indispensable, end customers are demanding less interruptions and better service. Our members realize the best solution to address this problem quickly and cost-effectively is through the broad adoption of open standards."

SA Forum Specifications

The SA Forum Hardware Platform Interface (HPI) and SA Forum Application Interface Specification (AIS) are available to Telecom Equipment Manufacturers (TEMs), Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), Independent Software Vendors (ISVs), and Network Equipment Providers (NEPs) on the SA Forum’s Web site (www.saforum.org ). These specifications facilitate faster and more cost-effective development and deployment of carrier-grade infrastructure equipment and applications. In addition, this open, standards-based interface will enable an ecosystem of solutions providers, yielding greater focus of design resources on innovation and product differentiation. Since their public release, both the HPI and AIS have been downloaded over 1100 times. The SA Forum HPI and AIS can be downloaded at www.saforum.org/specification .

New Officers for 2004

The SA Forum also announced the election of a new president and officers for 2004:

  • Manfred Reitenspiess, of Fujitsu-Siemens Computers, replaces Timo Jokiaho, of Nokia, as president.
  • Richard Somes, of Force Computers, replaces Henry Turko, of Nokia, as secretary / treasurer.
  • Henry Turko, of Nokia, replaces Mike Spies, of UXComm, as marketing chairperson.
  • Dave Penkler, of Hewlett-Packard, retains the position of technical chairperson.
  • Ken Hosac, of GoAhead Software, retains the position of member relations officer.

About the Service Availability Forum™

The Service Availability Forum™ is the industry body dedicated to creating and promoting the open specifications necessary for quickly building global communications equipment and applications that enable ultra-dependability for users of multi-service, packet-based networks. Created by industry leading communications and computing companies, the Service Availability Forum’s open programming interface specifications will help facilitate the fast delivery of dependable, differentiated, cost-effective communications infrastructure. Service Availability Forum membership offers the opportunity to take part in building the carrier-grade specifications for the future. For more information about the Service Availability Forum, visit www.saforum.org .

The Service Availability Forum is a registered trademark.