This EU standardization white paper is a weak attempt to focus on important issues. What is an ICT standard? Is a cell phone battery standard an ICT standard? Is a computer environmental disposal standard an ICT standard? Are the standards for telephone electronic components ICT standards? In fairness I do recognize this paper discusses standards that apply to the compatibility of computer or communications systems or equipment, less confusingly termed “compatibility” standards. The confused title is only preamble. Considering that the EU does not even have a reasonable (or widely accepted) definition of a technical standard proposing goals for a “quality” standard or “open” standard is meaningless.
Posts Tagged ‘ICT standards’
Modernising ICT Standardisation in the EU – The Way Forward
Thursday, July 15th, 2010The European Framework for Transparent Standardisation
Thursday, July 15th, 2010I will start first by saying in what role I make this contribution, which is in a personal capacity. I handle ICT standardisation and technology issues for the UK Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) – the ministry responsible for standardisation policy for the UK. As part of this I am a board member of ETSI and DVB. I am also a member of the Commission ICT standards steering group, and the steering group for the Commission IPR in standards study. These roles inform what I outline below, but are not statements on behalf of any of these organisations or groups.
The Government at the Standards Bazaar Redux (Or, When Should A Government Mandate An IT Standard?) – PART 2
Wednesday, July 14th, 2010This is the second in a series of articles in which contributor Stacy Baird presents and in-depth analysis of the role of governments in standards setting initiatives which is posted on a bi-weekly basis. The first in the series can be seen here – Editor
PART 2: There are Good Reasons for Government to be Reluctant to Mandate IT Standards
To start with the end: Government should be reluctant to mandate an IT standard. Before regulating an industry, policy makers have to look at a few things: the sophistication of the industry with regard to what is being considered for regulation; the capacity of industry to address a perceived problem without government regulation; whether regulation would be contrary to or in support of good public policy; and finally, whether the risk of “government failure” outstrips the risk of market failure. It is incontrovertable that when it comes to standards, the IT industries are sophisticated.
iPhone FaceTime: widespread adoption of video calling at last?
Thursday, June 10th, 2010While face-to-face video calling on mobile phones has been available for around a decade now, the technology has never gain substantial widespread public adoption. However, the inclusion of “FaceTime” video calling in Apple’s upcoming iOS 4 for iPhone4, announced Monday by CEO Steve jobs at WWDC2010, may give the technology the prerequisite market penetration to reap positive network externalities.
HP and Cisco in Head-to-head Competition in Networking
Tuesday, June 1st, 2010
Last month (April 12th), Hewlett-Packard Co (HP) announced the completion of its acquisition of 3Com for US$2.7billion. HP has also announced plans to build upon 3Com’s market lead in China to challenge rival Cisco’s market leadership worldwide in the market for enterprise networking solutions. The business plan’s focus is the increased use of open standards with the explicit purpose of lowering costs to consumers and stimulating increased innovation.
The future of standards
Friday, October 2nd, 2009As kindly requested by Mattias, I have accepted the offer to be the co-moderator of talkstandards. I hope to add a unique perspective to this discussion. In my previous post(Live and Let die ), I alluded to the theme of the future of standards. I intend to make it a key point of my discussions here.
Standards are a boring but necessary part of ICT technology .. but the ‘future of standards’ is not adequately discussed.
Was it Napoleon who said that all my generals are ready to fight LAST year’s battles .. i.e. which means they are likely to encounter new situations which they have not encountered before.
As the domains of traditional computing, mobility, social networking, traditional content, social media content, Intelligent devices, Smart grid and telecoms converge, we are facing new challenges in standards domain. These will also be reflected in new applications domains including e-health, e-government and others
So, I am hoping to make(what is a boring subject) a bit more interesting and at the least raise some topics to think about
Some topics I hope to cover(all from an evolution of standards perspective) – Web standards / open web; Standards in healthcare / eHealth; IPR / patents / copyrights and DRM; Mobility,Cloud computing; Smart grids; Gov 2.0, Data(security / transparency / portability); Identity( federation / protection) and Document standards
Any comments/thoughts/feedback welcome