Network Equipment Technologies, Inc. (“NET”, NASDAQ: NWK) announced today its Contributor Level membership in the recently 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.

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. Founding members of the UCIF include HP, Juniper Networks, Logitech / LifeSize Communications, Microsoft and Polycom.

"Interoperability is the backbone in multi-vendor best-of-breed solutions. Standards only form half of the interoperability equation. Different implementations of the standards cause interoperability issues. NET is excited about its participation in UCIF to help drive the interoperability between all UC components," said Kevin Isacks, Chief Technology Officer.

“Interoperability is not only critical to customer success for deploying unified communications but intrinsic to the delivery of legacy, current and next-generation UC tools, services and infrastructure from multiple vendors. Until now, efforts to achieve interoperability have appeared ad-hoc, which has given customers little assurance that their existing and planned investments are protected and will deliver the value promised,” said Jonathan Edwards, research analyst, Unified Communications, IDC. “I’m delighted to see NET take a leading role by joining the UCIF. Together, these companies will help drive industry wide adoption of open standards and develop programs that put accountability on the vendors and provide peace of mind and investment protection for end customers – something that will surely accelerate adoption of UC technologies.”

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 Network Equipment Technologies:
Network Equipment Technologies, Inc. (NET) provides network and VoIP solutions to enterprises and government agencies that seek to reduce the cost to deploy next generation unified and secure communications applications. For a quarter of a century, NET has delivered solutions for multi-service networks requiring high degrees of versatility, security and performance. Today, the company's broad family of products enables interoperability and integration with existing networks for migration to secure IP-based communications. NET is headquartered in Fremont, CA and has 14 offices worldwide including the US, the UK, France, the Middle East, China, Japan, Australia, and Latin America. The company sells its solutions through a direct sales force and an international network of resellers and distributors.

NET Contact:
Leigh Salvo
lsalvo@directir.com
+1 510 647 8870