GENEVA, Switzerland, Oct. 2, 1995 -- Cisco Systems Inc. today announced itssupport for the Multimedia Services Affiliate Forum, a global collaborationof companies being formed to adopt and maintain open standards forinternetworking and multimedia business communication services. Plans forthe Forum were announced earlier today at the Telecom95 industry show inGeneva.
"Cisco is a supplier of internetworking solutions to most of the world'stelecommunication service providers, and we are committed to furthering thedeployment and use of multimedia carrier services," said John Chambers,president and CEO of Cisco Systems. "We are very supportive of the plans forthe Multimedia Services Affiliate Forum, and intend to be among the first tojoin."
Cisco already supplies internetworking hardware and software totelecommunication service providers worldwide, including four of theForum's founding members -- AT&T, Deutsche Telekom, Telstra and Unisource.
"Unisource, a leading pan-European Telecom Service Provider jointly owned byPTT Telecom Netherlands, Sweden's Telia, Swiss Telecom, and Telefonica ofSpain, has standardized on Cisco as the internetworking provider for our LANInterconnect service that we are successfully commercializing in Europe,"commented Goran Forslund, Director of Service Development for Unisource.
Cisco and AT&T have collaborated in recent months in successful trials ofwide-area data services that are part of AT&T NetWare Connect Services. "Weare very pleased with the technology and support Cisco has given us in oursuccessful trials of AT&T NetWare Connect Services," said Rose Klimovich,AT&T Gateway Services Product Line Director.
In addition to supplying telecommunication service providers, Cisco isworking with another charter member of the Forum, Novell Inc., on technologyto enhance LAN internetworking over public wide-area connections. "The Forumis dedicated to the deployment of secure multimedia business networks withend-to-end service management and functionality, such as directory services.These are key requirements of a large number of our customers," said DonListwin, vice president and general manager of Cisco's Access Business Unit."As the leading worldwide provider of internetworking hardware and softwareto telecommunication carriers, Cisco welcomes the expansion of public datanetworking."
"Cisco has extensive expertise in building internetworking infrastructuresthat are secure, reliable and can scale up to meet growing demand," said TomArthur, General Manager of Novell's Business Internet Services. "Thisexperience, coupled with Cisco's focus on delivering multimedia solutionswith quality of service guarantees, will make Cisco a valuable addition tothe Multimedia Services Affiliate Forum."
Cisco Systems Inc.(NASDAQ: CSCO) is the leading global supplier ofinternetworking solutions,including routers, LAN and ATM switches, dial-upaccess servers and network management software. These products, integratedby the Cisco IOS(tm) software,link geographically dispersed LANs, WANs and IBMnetworks. Cisco news and product/service information are available on WorldWide Web site http://www.cisco.com. Cisco is headquartered in San Jose, CA.
