SAN JOSE, Calif. -- July 8, 1999 -- Cisco Systems, Inc. today announced itssupport of the newly formed Directory Interoperability Forum (DIF), initiatedby IBM and Novell. Cisco supports interoperability through standards evidencedby its co-founding of the Directory Enabled Networking (DEN) initiative withMicrosoft, enabling interoperation of applications for advanceddirectory-enabled network services.

"Cisco is committed to building applications that fit into the computingenvironments our customers choose," said Jim Turner, Sr. Manager of EnterprisePartnerships for Cisco Systems. "Cisco views the Directory InteroperabilityForum's charter as a complementary effort to the ongoing engineering activitiesof the DEN initiative, the Desktop Manageability Task Force (DMTF) and theInternet Engineering Task Force (IETF). We look forward to working with themembers of the Directory Interoperability Forum in the appropriate standardsworking groups."

Certification of vendor compliance with existing and future directory-relatedstandards will ease the burden of implementing applications taking advantage ofthe broad set of directory services installed in customer networks. Interoperability of heterogeneous directory services reflects the reality ofany customers today, and becomes increasingly important as enterprises extendtheir reach over the Internet. In the immediate future, vendors and customersmust rely on non-standards-based technologies for interoperability. Ultimately,standards will provide the key to long term value.

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