Parlay group announces new members, expansion into Wireless and IP

Parlay group announces new members, expansion into Wireless and IP The Parlay Group announced today the expansion of its membership and its Phase 2 work plan. AT&T, Cegetel, Cisco, Ericsson, IBM and Lucent have joined original members BT, Ulticom [formerly DGM&S Telecom], Microsoft, Nortel Networks, and Siemens. The group is promoting industry acceptance of the Parlay Application Programming Interface (API), a specification designed to enable carriers and independent software vendors to write applications to provide services across Wireless networks, Internet Protocol (IP)-based networks and the Public Switched Telephone network (PSTN). The Phase 2 work plan is intended to expand the capabilities of the API in Version 2 of the specification, with particular emphasis on wireless and IP services. Introducing value-added services to the IP world is still in its early stages, although many industry and standardization bodies are working on IP-related issues. The next release of the Parlay API, Version 2, will be a unique instrument to address this area of the market. Addressing the multiple domains of IP, PSTN and Wireless networks, the specification is aimed at attracting the vast community of third party applications vendors by providing access to network capabilities through open APIs. Using Parlay API Version 2, for example, programmers could create a service that integrates location information obtained from a wireless network or Global Positioning System and the Internet. Using information about the location of a customer's wireless handset, an application could search the Internet to find the nearest theater ticket office and connect the customer to make a reservation. Service providers could also use the Parlay API to create applications that control the level of network service provided to a particular customer for different types of business applications. In this case, for example, a financial institution may wish to give a stock trading application premium service with low packet delay, while employee web browsing would get 'best effort' service. Parlay's Phase 1 activities in 1998 included the design and development of the API, covering such functions as call control, messaging, and security. The results of that work were published and demonstrated in December 1998 in both the UK and US. The Guaranteed Call Delivery demo application featured a multi- location, multi-vendor equipment configuration that showed a set of Parlay API capabilities, including Service Provider Controlled Call Delivery combined with Interactive Voice Response (IVR) and E-mail. Since the completion of Phase 1 in December 1998, the Group has been receiving industry input and feedback to improve the specification. The resulting Parlay Specification Version 1.1 paves the way forward in developing usable, real- world product implementations of the API. This specification, along with the Microsoft Interface Definition Language (M-IDL) and Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) IDL mappings of the Parlay API, have been published at www.parlay.org. The Group intends to release Version 2 of the Parlay specification by December, along with a public demonstration of an enterprise application that will show the new capabilities of the API. The specification will be accompanied by supporting documentation, sample code, a reference implementation, and a Software Developers Kit (SDK). During Phase 2, the group expects that Parlay- compliant products will be announced, and that early versions will be available to the market. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT AT&T Kevin Compton, Public Relations Phone: +1 650 463-7069 E-mail: kcompton@att.com BT Corporate Newsroom 24hr number National: +44 171 356 5369 Cegetel Valerie Piot, Media Relations Phone: +33 1 41 97 64 82 E-mail: valerie.piot@cegetel.fr Cisco Systems, Inc. Clare Whitecross, Public Relations Manager, Service Provider Line of Business Phone: +1 408 525 2957 E-mail: cwhitecr@cisco.com Ericsson Helena Norrman, Press Manager, Ericsson Corporate Communications Phone: +46 8 719 3829, +46 70 344 40 88 E-mail: helena.norrman@lme.ericsson.se IBM Matthew Anchin, Communications Manager Phone: +1 914 642 5377 E-mail: anchin@us.ibm.com Lucent Technologies Inc. Rich Teplitsky, Media Relations Phone: +1 908 582 5700 E-mail: rteplitsky@lucent.com Microsoft Francine Plaza, PLAZApr for Microsoft Phone: +1 561 477 9762 E-mail: plaza_pr@gate.net Bob Pike, Director of Business Development ICU Corporate Phone: +44 118 909 3241 E-mail: bobpike@microsoft.com Nortel Networks Carol Anderson, Media Relations Phone: +1 919 997 2205 E-mail: caroland@nortelnetworks.com Siemens AG Marion Bludszuweit, Information and Communication Networks, Press department Phone: +49 89 722 47228 E-mail: marion.bludszuweit@uk.siemens.de Ulticom, Inc. Deidre Watters, Director of Marketing Communications Phone: +1 856 787 2788, +1 888 295 6664 E-mail: deidre.watters@ulticom.com Note to editors: If you are interested in viewing additional information on the Parlay group, please visit the Web pages below: www.parlay.org www.att.com www.bt.com www.cegetel.fr www.cisco.com www.ericsson.se www.ibm.com www.lucent.com www.microsoft.com www.nortelnetworks.com www.siemens.de/ic/networks/ www.ulticom.com ------------------------------------------------------------ Please visit http://www.bit.se for further information The following files are available for download: http://www.bit.se/bitonline/1999/06/15/19990615BIT00050/bit0001.doc http://www.bit.se/bitonline/1999/06/15/19990615BIT00050/bit0002.pdf