Information Technology Standards and Organizations

The formulation and ratification of universally accepted standards is essential to the establishment and general popular adoption of any technology on a macro-economic globally universal scale. It has been the proprietary nature of many otherwise great technologies that have seen them die over time as more universally available open standards options entered the market place.

Standards Definition, Documentation and Evangelism

The Internet for example is an open standards-based bunch of technologies that the Internet Architecture Board (IAB), the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) among others; each in their own areas of specialization, thoroughly document.

In addition to the definition of the various standards and production of the relevant accompanying documentation these organizations also actively pursue an evangelistic policy of ensuring that said documentation is widely known of and readily available to one and all. This ensures that all past, present, future and would-be hardware and/or software developers have a pertinent set of basic reference specifications to act as the core foundation upon which to build their products, applications and services.

Standards and Rapid Application Development (RAD)

Developing products compliant with the prevailing established prescribed standards means that new products can be brought to market considerably quicker than would otherwise be the case. Much of today’s information technology development is follows the Rapid Application Development (RAD) ethos.

Underpinning this are the principles of modularity, compartmentalization and reusability. The later point of reusability is of particular importance in software engineering as it delivers faster to market products. What’s more, since metaphorically speaking, there is usually no truly good reason to reinvent the wheel; why bother?

Global Considerations and Influences

As with all things involving large-scale factors on the global stage, standards can become very loose and modified to reflect local objectives (political and otherwise) by a multiplicity of organizations in numerous countries. Hence, it becomes necessary to formally develop and implement formal control, development, ratification and wide-spread implementation processes for standards development, documentation and implementation applicable from both generic and singularly specific perspectives.

IEEE 1394 (Firewire) and Universal Serial Bus (USB)

In marked contrast to the open USB standard, the superior performing (in comparison to USB) IEEE 1394 (Firewire) started its life as a proprietary protocol. This meant that royalties had to be paid or some form of cooperation/peering needed to be negotiated. The end result manifested as fewer numbers of more expensive devices being manufactured. To compound this even further; once the open USB protocol and standards had been released, uptake of IEEE 1394 enabled devices dropped dramatically.

International Standards Organization (ISO)

It was for these reasons along with many others (too many for me to list here) that the International Standards Organization (ISO) was formed. ISO are the premier general purpose standards organization today. You could think of ISO as being standards architects. Their mission was; and still is, to define the framework upon which standards applicable to both current and future technologies, protocols, products and services will be built.

Other Standards Organizations

Besides ISO there are considerable numbers of other standards bodies and/or organizations throughout the world. As with ISO, some of these organizations have considerable presence and influence on the global scale. However; unlike ISO they tend to be more specific, focusing their attentions and coverage to a numerically smaller more specialized range of interrelated (family) technologies. Some of the alternative Information Technology (IT) standards organizations with a global presence include:

• The Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
• The International Standards Organization (ISO)
• The Internet Society (ISOC)
• The Internet Architecture Board (IAB)
• The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
• The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
• The Electronic Industries Association (EIA)
• The International Telecommunications Union (ITU)
• The Motion Pictures Experts Group (MPEG)
• The Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG)
• The National Institute of Science and Technology (NIST)
• The American National Standards Institute (ANSI)
• The Telecommunications Association (TIA)
• Request For Comment – rfc-editor.org
• The Project Management Institute (PMI)
• Payment Card Industry (PCI)

Many of the above organizations cover a considerable range and diversity of topics. There is also a considerable degree of overlap of interest in many areas. I will therefore deal with each in turn and to a greater degree of detail in future articles.

Goals, Objectives and Ideals

Most of the above organizations have as their driving goal the ideals of assisting engineers, manufacturers and business in solving basic production and distribution issues through the development of appropriate technical standards and specifications. Here are a few of the benefits that regulated standards and standardization deliver:

• Development of safer, cleaner, more efficient manufacturing, distribution, and supply of products and services thereby promoting easier and fairer trade practices beneficial to one and all
• Assist governments with a technical base for health, safety and environmental legislation
• Technology dissemination and interchange
• Safeguarding consumers and end users of products and services

Payment Cards Industry (PCI)

In the case of the Payment Cards Industry (PCI), failure to comply with these standards generally results in the merchant/business having their trading rights revoked. This is a serious matter and as a result, merchant/business compliance is in excess of 99%.

The fact that compliance is mandatory and the penalty for non-compliance is so high are the main reasons as to why this set of standards (PCI) have seen global adoption. We have also seen a wide adoption of ISO 9000:2000 family of standards in the areas of quality control, quality management and quality assurance. I will now discuss them briefly.

International Standards

• Business Benefits - Local and international trade and business benefit from the "level playing field" that International Standards deliver to all competitors at both the regional and global market levels.
• Consumer Benefits - Consumers in general benefit from international standards delivered by worldwide technology compliance and/or compatibility. This translates into ensuring the delivery of a greater all-round variety and diversity of products and services. More competition benefits the consumer by way of far better competitive pricing of the products and/or services they consume.