IBM and Standards
September 24, 2008
The headline “IBM May Quit Technology Standards Body”, if true, marks an important change in direction at IBM. The article here references the Wall Street Journal asserting:
IBM has become frustrated by what it considers opaque processes and poor decision-making at some of the hundreds of bodies that set technical standards for everything from data-storage systems to programming languages…
In my opinion, IBM’s effort to support open source was a useful endorsement of open source. The Eclipse Foundation owes IBM a debt which it may not be able to repay. Now, IBM and other super platforms may be shifting back to the good, old, and lucrative days of walled gardens. In a world distorted by Google’s gravitational pull, companies like IBM have to protect their assets. Standards may be a problem, not a solution. The losers? I think it will be small fish like me.
Stephen Arnold, September 24, 2008
Comments
2 Responses to “IBM and Standards”
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Stephen
I have to respectfully disagree. This is a direct slap in the face to Microsoft for the way it ‘gamed’ the ISO and its processes to get its Office Open XML ratified as an ISO standard.
I am sure that ‘back in the day’ IBM did a little ‘gaming’ of its own with standards, but as you mentioned, the new IBM seemed to grok open source and thus it suddenly likes the idea of open, transparent bodies representing widely diverse stakeholders, and it along with many ISO ‘national bodies’ does not at all like the way the ISO / IEC seems to have completely ignored its own published processes lately.
It would not surprise me if IBM led the charge to replace / supplant ISO with a new body instead – but we will just have to wait and see eh ?
Jed
Jed Cawthorne,
Thanks for the post. I was keying off a story. The Beyond Search Goose is on the fence.
Stephen Arnold