12/23/2010 2010 Year In Review: A Push For Collaboration Within The UC Industry Mike Dolan, FierceVoIP Interoperability is key in the VoIP world and these one-to-one testing and certification moves are integral for companies making decisions about which products to buy whether they are just upgrading piece by piece or overhauling their whole communications systems. With so many companies, devices, protocols and uses for IP communications, there is no end to the need for compatibility. One of the major interoperability announcements of the year was the UCIF--an attempt by some industry leaders to form partnerships are across the board interoperability testing to streamline the whole process. HP, Juniper Networks, Microsoft, Logitech/LifeSize, and Polycom joined together to found the Unified Communications Interoperability Forum (UCIF), a group dedicated to enabling standards-based, inter-vendor UC interoperability.