The SIP Forum, an IP communications industry association that engages in numerous activities that promote and advance SIP-based technology, has announced the recent re-election of industry veteran and VoIP pioneer Richard Shockey to the Board of Directors, and the election of Shockey as new Board Chairman.

Richard Shockey, founder of Shockey Consulting, is an industry veteran with a decades-long and distinguished track record in helping shape numerous technical standards that have become the foundation for today’s SIP-based next generation network infrastructure and application ecosystem.

Skype today announced that it has hired David Gurle as the new General Manager and Vice President of its Skype for Business unit. He replaces Stefan Oberg, who will be leaving Skype in March 2010.

"Moving forward, our goal is to educate and attract larger organizations that can not only save money by using Skype to communicate, but also increase their organizational productivity and enhance the way they interact with customers around the globe," said David Gurle.

Tadiran Telecom has signed a distribution agreement with Teledata Technologies in a collaboration aimed at targeting "vast" VoIP opportunities in the African telecom market.
The IP business telephony and communications supplier has also announced the appointment of Zeev Aviv as acting President and CEO. Until recently, he served as VP Sales and Marketing.

Jeff Carr has been appointed CEO of VoIP provider SinglePipe as part of a strategic restructuring to support a market and product expansion.
Matt Phillips, who had been CEO, shifts to vice chairman of corporate development for the Kentucky-based managed services provider, while Cynthia Carpenter has been named as president and COO.

Richard Shockey has joined the advisory board of XConnect, the VoIP and Next Generation Network (NGN) interconnection service provider.
A pioneer in ENUM (Electronic NUMbering) and expert in VoIP, Shockey is a founder and has been co-chair since 2002 of the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) ENUM Working Group.