CableLabs, HP, Lenovo Among 15 New Open Interconnect Consortium Members

Membership in the Open Interconnect Consortium is nearing four dozen companies with the addition of 15 members, the consortium said in a Wednesday announcement. Among the noteworthy new members are CableLabs, Hewlett-Packard and Lenovo. In addition, GE Software joined as the consortium’s newest "diamond" member and took a seat on the consortium board, the group said. Other board members are Cisco, Intel, MediaTek and Samsung. Diamond is the most elite of the organization's three membership tiers, the consortium’s bylaws say. To achieve diamond, a company must pay $350,000 in annual dues (vs. $75,000 for platinum, $10,000 for gold), and must be approved by a 75 percent vote of the board, the rules say. Diamond is the only tier that qualifies for a board seat, though platinum members may chair or participate in a working group, they say. The consortium was formed this summer to promote interoperability among the billions of connected devices expected to come online by 2020, by establishing a specification, an open source implementation and a certification program, first for smart home and office solutions (see 1407090068).