The SIP Forum seems to be making some nice progress in attracting a broad swath of companies to its organization.

In case you aren't aware, The SIP Forum is a non-profit IP communications industry association that engages in numerous activities that advance and promote SIP technology, such as the development of industry recommendations, the SIPit interoperability and testing events, special interoperability workshops, and general promotion of SIP in the industry.

One of the Forum's recent technical activities is the development of the SIPconnect Technical Recommendation -- a standards-based recommendation that provides detailed guidelines for direct IP peering and interoperability between IP PBXs and VoIP service provider networks, and the SIPconnect Compliant Certification Program through which eligible companies can gain SIPconnect validation and the right to license the use of the SIP Forum's 'SIPconnect Compliant' certification mark.

What sort of progress are they making you ask? Well, they have recently told the world they are experianceing 100% 100% growth compared to the last quarter of 2007. The organization now has
46 Full Member companies and more than 5,000 individual members from around the world.

Why do people join the forum? Well Ken Kuenzel, Founder and CTO, Covergence, Inc. says his company joined the SIP Forum because of its efforts to build on existing IETF standards to define a standards-based approach that will enable seamless IP peering between IP PBXs and VoIP service providers.

Eric Swift, Senior Director of the Office Communications Group at Microsoft Corporation said We at Microsoft have long embraced SIP as an important standard and foundation for interoperability... By participating in the SIP Forum, we will help drive the adoption of standards throughout the unified communications industry and make it easier for customers to tap into the benefits unified communications offers.

If you are thinking of joining, check the association's website for more information.

Here is a list of full members at the moment:

3Com; Acme Packet; Alcatel-Lucent; Aricent; Aspect; AudioCodes Ltd.; Avaya; Bandwidth.com; BEA Systems, Inc.; Bluenote Networks; Broadsoft, Cbeyond, Cable Television Laboratories, Inc. (CableLabs); CGI Group Inc; Cisco Systems; Covergence; Data Connection Limited (DCL); Dialogic Corporation; Digium; Ericsson; IBM; Hewlett-Packard; Ingate Systems AB; Intertex Data AB; IP Unity Glenayre; McLeodUSA Inc.; Microsoft Corporation; Mitel; NEC Unified Solutions Inc.; NeuStar, NextPoint Networks; Nokia; Oracle; Polycom; RADVision; Siemens, SOLINET GmbH; SNOM; Sonus Networks; Tandberg; Tecnomen; Tekelec; Telsis Limited; University of New Hampshire Interoperability Laboratory; UTStarcom; and Wipro