A-IMS Dead? The end of standard's ambiguity?

I recently found out that Verizon Wireless's A-IMS initiative was called off internally last November.

A-IMS was started a few years ago by Verizon Wireless to provide several practical enhancements to IMS architecture. The effort was backed by several of VZW's IMS vendors and some of these recommendations are being incorporated by the 3GPP spec.

From a quality perspective, one less standard (or quasi-standard) to test for and interoperate with is a good thing. ETSI's move to allow the 3GPP to handle the core IMS specifications last summer(http://www.etsi.org/WebSite/NewsandEvents/2007_06_common_ims.aspx) was also a big step in this direction. With PacketCable requirements being built in to R8, we may be only a few years away from seeing much of the standards ambiguity problem diassapear.

The complexity problem is a different matter...