SALT LAKE CITY, May 19 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- ClearOne (http://www.clearone.com) (Nasdaq: CLRO), today announced its membership in the newly formed Unified Communications Interoperability Forum (UCIF), a non-profit alliance of worldwide technology leaders working together to fully realize the potential of Unified Communications (UC). The UCIF is dedicated to enabling standards-based, cross-vendor interoperability of UC hardware and software across enterprises, service providers and consumer clouds and is designed to enable global businesses to be more productive.

ClearOne is joined by founding members HP, Juniper Networks, Logitech / LifeSize Communications, Microsoft and Polycom, as well as Acme Packet, Aspect, AudioCodes, Broadcom, BroadSoft, Brocade, Jabra, Plantronics, RADVISION, Siemens Enterprise Communications, and Teliris. Recognizing that seamless interoperability based on open standards is one of the key requirements to drive UC further into today's enterprises, UCIF members will collaborate to overcome existing interoperability barriers to widespread UC adoption and deliver a reliable and rich UC experience, with the goal of propelling worldwide enterprise UC adoption.

"In the dynamic and rapidly evolving unified communications market, interoperability among the components offered by various vendors is increasingly important in order to meet the performance and ease of use expectations of the end user," said Tracy Bathurst, Chief Strategy Officer at ClearOne. "The UCIF is well positioned to facilitate this broad interoperability and give users of UC the experience they are asking for. ClearOne looks forward to being an active participant in this important industry alliance."

The UCIF will work with existing industry standards, identifying and filling the gaps between current protocols and interoperability issues that have stalled broad adoption and deployment of valuable communications methods. UCIF membership is open to hardware and software solution providers, service providers and network operators. For more information or to join the UCIF, visit www.ucif.org.

About the Unified Communications Interoperability Forum

The Unified Communications Interoperability Forum (UCIF) is a non-profit alliance of worldwide communications technology leaders working together to realize the potential of unified communications (UC) by increasing efficiency, decreasing implementation costs and improving the interoperability experience for UC customers. The UCIF's vision is to enable interoperability of standards-based UC hardware and software across enterprises, service providers, and consumer clouds, as a means of generating incremental business opportunity for all stakeholders in the ecosystem and of increasing the business use of UC technologies and services. The UCIF creates and tests interoperability profiles, implementation guidelines and best practices for interoperability between UC products and existing communications and business applications. Visit www.ucif.org to learn more.

About ClearOne

ClearOne is a global communications solutions company that develops and sells audio conferencing, collaboration, streaming media, and connectivity systems and other related products for audio, video, and web applications. The reliability, flexibility and performance of our advanced comprehensive solutions enhance the quality of life through better communication, education, and entertainment.

We develop, manufacture, market, and service a comprehensive line of high-quality audio conferencing products under personal, tabletop, premium and professional (installed audio) categories. We occupy the number one position in the global professional audio conferencing market with more than 50% of the global market share. Our conferencing solutions save organizations time and money by creating a natural environment for collaboration.

NetStreams, recently acquired by ClearOne, delivers the ultimate IP A/V experience by distributing high definition audio and video over TCP/IP networks. NetStreams' products, designed for commercial and residential use, offer unprecedented levels of performance, functionality, simplicity, reliability, and expandability. By combining audio/video content, meta-data and control signals into one stream and incorporating industry standards, NetStreams' newly patented StreamNet® solutions are a smart investment, enabling the Power of AV over IP™ – today.

NetStreams' StreamNet technology provides elegant solutions for streaming media & control applications such as digital signage, distribution of HD video and audio, LAN Cloud Matrix Switching™, and audio paging over data networks.

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SOURCE ClearOne