ENGINEERING

The International Function Point Users Group (IFPUG) announced that it has established a formal relationship of cooperation and collaboration with TM Forum.

With more than 700 corporate members in 195 countries, TM Forum is the world's leading industry association focused on enabling best-in-class IT for service providers in the communications, media, and cloud service markets. With approximately 3000 members worldwide, IFPUG is a leading worldwide association in the innovation and application of IT measurement techniques. IFPUG and TM Forum share an overlap in member companies, and the new relationship between the two IT organizations will provide industry with improved analytical frameworks and opportunities for gains in efficiency.

TM Forum and IFPUG frameworks have essentially the same general model: boundaries, data, and processes. From a functional perspective, TM Forum frameworks can be applied to help consistently identify application boundaries, which can improve data collection consistency and analytical relevancy. TM Forum frameworks help to document high level processes to provide guidance relating to what processes and functional requirements are typically included in the application or product. IFPUG's functional sizing framework contributes detailed functional analysis information that will help populate some of the TM Forum frameworks and lower level processes.

TM Forum is an industry and executive-driven organization, which brings "real world" issues and focuses of today to the forefront of discussions. Involved in Mobile World Congress, 4G and other advanced telecommunication communities, TM Forum has the ear of industry and is directed based upon industry priorities of today. TM Forum also hosts the reuse and standards communities for various tools and facilities NGOSS, OSS/J, MTOSI and other application developer frameworks.

IFPUG's involvement in international standards development complements these initiatives and provides the opportunity for further clarity in the arena of IT performance measurement.

Upcoming events for the two organizations include:

• TM Forum - Management World Americas - Orlando, Florida - November 9-11, 2010
• International Software Measurement and Analysis Conference - São Paulo, Brazil - September 13 - 15, 2010

For additional information, please see IFPUG's website at www.ifpug.org and TM Forum's website at www.tmforum.org.