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BOTHELL, Wash. — Dec. 14, 2017 — The Alliance for IP Media Solutions (AIMS) today announced that it is merging with the Media Networking Alliance (MNA) to form a single trade association for promoting IP in the media and entertainment industry. The merger comes after a two-year history of collaboration, and it will enable the organizations to have an even greater impact on the industries they serve. The new joint organization will retain the AIMS name and will be governed by the existing AIMS bylaws.

Like AIMS, MNA exists to promote a standards-based approach to IP interoperability. MNA is focused on AES67, and its membership consists of companies doing business in the broadcast, professional audio, pro AV, and installation markets. In the past two years, AIMS and MNA have enjoyed a strong relationship, formally executing a liaison agreement and cooperating to promote AES67 technology, which is common to both organizations’ roadmaps. Since the 2017 NAB Show, both organizations have also lent financial support to the IP Showcase, their largest and arguably most impactful undertaking to date.

The merger between the two organizations will create support for common standards that benefit multiple market segments at once. For example, products designed for the broadcast segment are in many ways similar to those for professional audio, but often the standards for those markets segments are developed without much coordination. This merger allows AIMS and MNA members to work on adopting common methodologies for transport, registration and discovery, connection management, and other areas of interoperability even as they focus on the unique requirements of their respective market segments.

By creating standards that address a larger array of applications and market segments, AIMS members that are vendors will have fewer variants of the standards to support and will be able to cross-sell to other market segments more easily while making more efficient use of their R&D budgets. Meanwhile, AIMS members that are users will benefit from a wider selection of vendors whose products comply with standards on the AIMS roadmap. Finally, AIMS members that are also members of MNA will pay only one membership fee instead of two.

Full members of both organizations voted to approve the merger on Dec. 13.

“The merging of the Media Networking Alliance and AIMS is great news for our industry. The MNA was formed by people and companies who wanted to support interoperability between various IP-based audio networks via the use of AES67. Likewise, AIMS members support standards-based IP audio and video interoperability,” said Rich Zwiebel, chairman of Media Networking Alliance. “Now, with the merging of the two organizations, we have a larger voice and a single place for technical and marketing discussions amongst a larger group of industry leaders. As AIMS, we will be able to provide a much more compelling message to the industry, assuring true industry-wide audio/video IP interoperability across the broadcast, installed systems, and live sound markets. We are excited to be a part of this major step forward in standards-based IP interoperability.”

“As AIMS approaches its two-year anniversary, we have an exciting opportunity to increase our influence and strengthen our ability to foster the adoption of a common set of protocols for interoperability over IP,” said Michael Cronk, AIMS board chair. “After careful deliberation, both the AIMS and MNA boards reached the conclusion that merging our organizations was the natural thing to do, and our members agreed. By combining membership, the bigger, stronger AIMS can reach a greater section of the media and entertainment market. We’re excited about the potential of this merger to fulfill our mission more quickly.”

INTEROPERABILITY SHOWCASE
In addition to the conference sessions, the show will feature demonstrations of the convergence of IP for broadcast and examples of interoperability at the IP Showcase on the show floor. Sponsored by eight organizations including AES, AIMS, IABM, JT-NM members AMWA, EBU, SMPTE and VSF, as well as the Media Networking Alliance (MNA), the IP Showcase will play host to companies demonstrating dozens of new products.

“No doubt, the most exciting IP event at NAB 2017 will be the showcase,” said Thomas Edwards, vice president of engineering and development for Fox Networks Engineering and Operations. “Similar to the IBC IP Interoperability Zone, this booth in the North Hall of the LVCC is supported by the major players and will have about 40 companies showing IP interoperability. It goes a step beyond IBC, because it will concentrate on transport using the new SMPTE ST 2110 draft standard, as well as systemization with AMWA IS-04 registration and discovery and SMPTE ST 2059 PTP timing.”

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