AMS, whose other clients include the DSL Forum, the Optical Internetworking Forum and the IP/MPLS Forum, participated in a rigorous request-for-proposal (RFP) process initiated by the IETF in which proposals were received from association management companies, standards development organizations and event services providers worldwide.

“We felt that AMS offered the best solution for the IETF," said Russ Housley, chairman of the IETF. "AMS offers a strong combination of association management experience and innovation. We will make use of the full suite of services offered by AMS to provide the IETF with a strong administrative platform supporting the development of standards for the international Internet community.”

The mission of the IETF is to produce high quality, relevant technical and engineering documents that influence the way people design, use and manage the Internet in such a way as to make the Internet work better. These documents include protocol standards, best current practices and informational documents of various kinds. The IETF’s cardinal principles are open process and technical competence.

“While serving technology groups for more than a decade, we’ve built up a great deal of respect for the IETF,” said Lisa Winkler, a managing partner at AMS. “Many of our current clients have benefited from the progress made by the IETF community. We feel it is a natural extension of our business to serve the IETF directly. We are extremely proud that the IETF selected AMS as a result of its international search for a secretariat.”

AMS has expanded its IT infrastructure and is in the process of adding staff to its forum management and event services groups to serve the IETF without reducing the level of service its other 10 clients receive during the transition of the IETF to AMS management.

“While we are pleased that 2008 looks to be a growth year for AMS, it is very important to us that we maintain the level of service our dedicated staff provides to each AMS client,” said Kirsten Machi, a managing partner at AMS. “Our client references were a big factor in the IETF’s review of AMS and we feel our clients’ positive impressions of AMS are directly linked to the staff serving each forum.”

AMS, which has managed technology groups for more than a decade, will support the international efforts of the IETF community by managing its international meetings, as well as providing experienced staff dedicated exclusively to the IETF’s needs.

“To us, this is validation of something we’ve believed for many years. The standards development process has truly become international and now requires an extensive, collaborative infrastructure to support it,” said Karen Moreland, a managing partner at AMS.

The IETF is a loosely self-organized community of individuals who contribute to the engineering and evolution of Internet technologies. It is the principal body engaged in the development of new Internet standard specifications. The IETF is unusual in that it exists as a collection of happenings, but is not a corporation and has no board of directors, no members and no dues. Anyone may register for and attend any meeting. Information on IETF activities can be found at www.ietf.org.

AMS is a Fremont, California based association management company that has provided IT, secretariat and event services to its technology forum clients for more than a decade. In addition to the IETF, AMS clients include: the Broadband Services Forum; Coral Consortium; the DSL Forum; the FLO Forum; the Gaming Standards Association; the IPsphere Forum; the MPEG Industry Forum; the PCI Security Vendor Alliance; the IP/MPLS Forum; the MultiService Forum and the Optical Internetworking Forum