Dear OASIS Members:
I'd like to call your attention to an article I wrote a few months ago
on standards:
http://news.com.com/2010-1071-984885.html
The article summarizes my views pretty well, although it does use a
bit of rhetoric to help improve readability. Nonetheless, the
biggest issue confronting those of us working in the standards arena
is determining the size and scope of the market addressable by
standards. Conversely, it will be just as challenging to identify
those areas of the market that are not appropriate for
standardization.
The Economist quoted this article in their annual IT review a couple
of weeks ago:
http://www.economist.com/surveys/displayStory.cfm?Story_id=1747362
The topic is the potential benefit to the computer industry of
standardized software, and highlighted the current controversy over
Web services standards:
"The controversy points to a more general problem with technology
standards: where to draw the line between the IT commons and the areas
where firms should compete with proprietary technology. If the commons
area is too large, there might not be enough incentive to innovate. If
it is too small, incompatibilities could keep web services from
becoming a standard way for computer systems to communicate."
The challenge for OASIS is to understand and help achieve the right
balance between the standards customers need for IT productivity and
the technologies that need to be kept vendor-specific to form the
basis of competition and profit.
I started working in this area about thirteen years ago, when I was
assigned to the Multivendor Integration Architecture (MIA) sponsored
by NTT and the Service Providers' Integrated Requirements for
Information Technology (SPIRIT) sponsored by the Telecom Management
Forum and X/Open. I worked on teams with representatives of major
telecommunication companies and major computer vendors to develop
requirements, write specifications, and produce conformant products.
I summarized the results in a journal article published later that
same year:
http://research.compaq.com/wrl/DECarchives/DTJ/DTJI03/DTJI03PF.PDF
Today, although many of the same problems remain unsolved, XML
promises a much better approach to IT standardization in a more mature
industry, and OASIS is in a good position to provide needed
leadership. I look forward to playing a role, and contributing to
OASIS's success, based on the lessons learned from the previous
in-depth work with both large customers and vendors, as well as
subsequent work at IETF, OMG, and W3C, in addition to my experience at
OASIS during the past couple of years.
Regards,
Eric
eric.newcomer@iona.com
781 902 8366