This message was posted on the Cloud Computing Interoperability Forum today, it's meant to be a kind of "state of the union" address outling a vision and direction for the group.

Considering the myriad of great discussions recently on the CCIF, we figured it was time to bring everyone up to speed on some of the things going on behind the scenes. First we'd like to thank everyone for your enthusiasm, participation, support. It's been amazing to see how quickly the cloud interoperability movement has taken off.

A few have pointed out that the CCIF appears to be the act of one person, I'd like to assure you this is not the case. Although I am the "instigator" and most vocal member, the CCIF has an excellent leadership team made up of my partners from CloudCamp, (Jesse Silver, Dave Neilsen, Sam Charrington) as well as a significant number of major industry sponsors (David Bernstein from Cisco, Craig Lee from OGF, Jake Smith from Intel, Steve Diamond from IEEE, Scott Radeztsky from Sun & Shishir Garg from France Telecom / Orange ) who we are working closely with us to secure a long and productive future for the CCIF. Although I can't go into details, we've have been in discussions for some months now and are very close to making an exciting announcement.

As a community, let's continue working to develop our ideas and methods around cloud interop, and related discussions. Our ultimate goal is to drive a consensus on the difficulties as well as opportunities for cloud interoperability. As you may have noticed unlike other discussion groups we strive to limit moderation, regardless of whether or not we agree you should have the freedom to express your opinions. If you feel you have been unfairly moderated for any reason I encourage you to please contact one of us directly.

You may have also seen we are forming a UCI working group. If you want to take a leadership role in CCIF today, this is the best way to do so. This is an "Open Forum" and therefore it must be open to all regardless of whether you're the CTO of a major corporation or a consultant with an interest in cloud computing.

• Goals of the Cloud Computing Interoperability Forum
• Call to Action: UCI Working Group
• Cloud Interoperability Magazine Launched at Ulitzer.com