Most of you would be familiar with BICSI (Building Industry Consulting Service International), the international information technology systems association. Their involvement with the data center sphere goes back a good while, and their influence in especially the US is profound on a tech knowledge level.

This month, the group has announced two partnerships. A new 'friendship agreement' is signed with InfoComm, a group that supports audio-visual professionals. The other one is a continuation of the partnership with the TIA, the Telecommunications Industry Association.

Now what do both groups have in common? Exactly: they cannot exist without IT nowadays. Telco's have some of the heaviest, most demanding data centers out there, while the audio-visual industry relies on better and better connectivity.

The agreement means that the groups will coordinate their standards efforts, making sure they keep in line with one another. Also, there will be significant knowledge transfers between the groups, and certificates will undergo harmonisation where needed.

This also shows that IT is the good samaritan here, because it is less dependent on the other sectors in the way they are dependent to IT. It is in their good interest to sign a contract like this with BICSI and similar groups.

We will see a lot more of these in the coming years.