Standardization in IT - a brief notes on literature

The following readings are on the topic of standardization in Information Technology:


Jacobs, K. "Information Technology Standards, Standard Setting and Standard Research"

* Advantages of Industry consortia to set standards
* Standardization becomes more important with increasing economic and corporate globalization
* Governments push standards to support domestic firms
* Standards are not just rooted in technical deliberation, but also result from a process of social interactions between stakeholders
* Do standard hamper progress and stand in the way of technical innovation?
* Standardization is costly business and time consuming, so "Why participate at all?": because: (a) avoid technological dead-ends. (b) reduce dependency on vendors, (c) promote universality
* A review of the standard setting process
* In IT most new systems emerge from standardization processes; Constructive Technology Assessment's 'technology forcing' strategy aims at applying external pressure on a technical development.
* Slow, cumbersome, compromise laden and hidden agendas are popular attributes when it comes to characterising the formal standardisation processes in the ICT domain.



Morell, J.A. (1994) "Standards and the market acceptance of information technology: An exploration of relationship" Computer Standards & Interfaces Vol. 16, pp. 321-329.

Three questions are raised:
Q1: How do standards affect the acceptance of technology?
Q2: How can a standars setting process be guided successfully from conception to completion?
Q3: How do (i) standards, (ii) standard setting processes, and (iii) technology acceptance interact with each other?



Model of the standards process (characteristics of technology; market structure; vendor strategies)-> standard setting process -> standard acceptance -> technology acceptance

Standards affect technology in the following manner:
* assurance of performance
* communication between buyer and seller
* compatibility with existing technology
* compatibililty with future technology
* cost
* features
* development of ancilliary technologies
* how a technology will be used

Factors that affect the acceptance of standards:
* single vendor's ability to dominate a market
* impact of standards on vendor-customer relationships
* impact of the standard on an installed base
*ability of customers to drive standards
* impact on compatibility
* competing standards

How the characteristics of technology affect the standard setting process (e.g. whether the standards are accepted)
* network externalities
* stage of technological development
* consequence for compatibility and integration