At launch, 23 TM Forum Member Companies Publicly Committing to Certification Program, Demonstrating The Power of Industry Collaboration To Break Down Barriers To Growth

Copenhagen, June 18th 2024 – At DTW24 – Ignite, TM Forum, the leading global alliance of telco and tech companies, has announced a conformance certification program for its Open Digital Architecture (ODA) to accelerate the telco industry’s move away from monolithic, legacy IT stacks towards a more agile, horizontal, plug-and-play future that will reduce costs, transform customer experience, and re-ignite growth.  

TM Forum’s Open Digital Architecture defines standardized, interoperable software components that expose business services through Open APIs built on a common data model. By working together to develop, test and deploy certified ODA Components, the entire telco and tech ecosystem benefits by gaining greater agility, flexibility and velocity, which will drive better experiences, profitability and growth.

Developed in collaboration with members, the program will enable software suppliers to certify their commercial products for conformance against TM Forum’s ODA Component specifications from January 2025.  23 TM Forum member companies – Accenture, Alvatross, AWS, Axiata Digital Labs, Bell Canada, Blue Planet, China Mobile, Deutsche Telekom, Ericsson, Etiya, Globetom, Google Cloud, Hansen, Huawei, Infosys, Jio, Marand, Matrixx, Microsoft, Oracle, Red Hat, Vodafone and Whale Cloud – have publicly committed to the program, with software vendors building conformance into their product roadmaps and Communications Service Providers (CSPs) committing to provide a conformant operating environment for ODA Components built on the ODA Canvas.   

A Reference Canvas, which will reach General Availability later this year, has been developed by TM Forum members as part of TM Forum’s Innovation Hub program and is already available as an opensource download from GitHub.  AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft, Oracle and Red Hat are demonstrating commercial versions of the Canvas at DTW24 – Ignite.

“Today’s announcement marks another important step in our mission to deliver fully composable IT and ecosystems through ODA.” says George Glass, CTO TM Forum. “ODA provides the blueprint for a cloud native telco by simplifying design, modernizing software, and automating operations, and I’m delighted that so many members have publicly committed to the certification program here in Copenhagen. It’s a clear demonstration of the power of our members working together to break down barriers to growth.”  

Scott Petty, CTO, Vodafone Group: “Vodafone has been at the forefront of utilizing TM Forum’s Open Digital Architecture and Open APIs to enhance the customer experience across multiple channels and unlock new revenue streams. ODA Components and Canvas certification will further drive end-to-end automation and remove complexity, which in turn, will lower costs for application developers, allowing them to introduce new features and services more quickly at scale.”  

Antony Rodrigo, Group CIO, Axiata: “Achieving ‘Running on ODA’ status has empowered Axiata to leverage cloud-native, vendor-agnostic solutions using TM Forum’s Open APIs. The ODA Component and Canvas Certification program will further accelerate our AI-driven service creation, enabling us to achieve our growth ambitions through simplification of product design, high velocity go-to-market, and enhanced IT and network capabilities.”

Claudia Nemat, Board member for Technology and Innovation, Deutsche Telekom AG: “We believe in technology that creates real value for people, but is developed frugally. That’s why we drive ODA compliance to accelerate delivery, reduce time to market, and leverage telco developments. Standardization requires a shared commitment. Therefore, we participate in developing ODA standards and work with CSPs, Hyperscalers and Technology Providers on ODA certification.”  

Formal certification will be available in January 2025 through a Conformance Test Kit (CTK) that will be launched later this year. Members can prepare for certification by joining the ODA Components & Canvas program, where they can contribute to the development of the ODA standards and gain early access to the prototype Component CTK.

-ENDS-

About TM Forum

TM Forum is a global alliance of telco and tech companies, leading the industry in defining the building blocks for new operating models, impactful new partnerships, and advanced software platforms.

TM Forum helps its members unlock the value of data to create nearly endless opportunities for players across the communications ecosystem. At DTW Ignite, Accelerate and Collaboration events, TM Forum provides a platform for industry change-makers to share groundbreaking innovation, market developments, product launches and business transformation journeys.

We are the only industry body to count the world’s top 10 CSPs and all the key hyperscalers as active, strategic members.

 With over 800 members, we are on a mission to reinvent the telco industry as a vibrant part of the digital landscape – and a driving force in shaping its future.

To find out more, visit: https://www.tmforum.org/

Media contacts:

Paul Wooding, Head of PR, TM Forum: [email protected]
TM Forum Media Relations: [email protected]