Novell Inc has extended the membership of its telephone industry group, the Novell Open Telephony Association, to include software developers and other parties interested in the progress of computer telephony integration. The Association will now charge an annual membership fee of $350, which will be used to contribute to marketing activities, a quarterly newsletter and direct mail campaigns. It also plans a yearly European road show to demonstrate products to users. Three levels of membership will now be offered, Partners, Developers and Associates. The Partners group will consist of PABX and switch manufacturers, and currently has members including Alcatel-Alsthom SA, AT&T Corp, Dialogic Corp, L M Ericsson Telefon AB, GPT Communications Systems Ltd, Interconnect Inc, Nortel Matra Cellular SA, Mitel Corp, Northern Telecom Ltd, Philips Electronics NV, SDX Business Systems Ltd and Siemens AG unit Rolm. The Developer membership category will be open to software developers wanting to create Telephony Services Application Programming Interface applications. Each developer subscribing will receive a copy of the Association’s software development kit for Telephony Services as part of their fee. The kit comprises a telephony server licence enabling developers to set up and test their applications and a switch emulator, programming interface specification and a sample application on disk. Consultants within the telephony industry will also be able to join the Novell group as Associate members, enabling them to benefit from the Association’s marketing programme. Fees for this start at $175, says Novell.
