RE: "IEEE Moves to Reclaim Standards Clout" in EE Times

["Roger B. Marks" <r.b.marks@ieee.org>]

Yesterday, I said "I would rather see ISTO... cooperating instead of
competing. I realize that this is a conservative stance."

At the time, I was thinking of the trendy book _The Innovator's Dilemma :
When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail_:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0875845851/qid%3D924702951/sr%3D1-2/002-8
826847-5613435

Although I haven't read it, I understand that it tries to address how
established businesses fail by aiming to satisfy their existing customer
base but missing the impact of "dislocating technologies." I think one of
its recommendations is to set up separate competing organizations, outside
of the existing structure, to exploit the new technology. [An example is HP
setting up an ink-jet printer organization to compete with its laser
printers; see <http://www.forbes.com/asap/99/0405/015.htm>]. The formation
of the ISTO reminds me of this approach.

In this spirit, ISTO is _supposed_ to compete with us, and we are supposed
to compete back; this should make us better. I can deal with that. 802.16
is ALREADY an example of how IEEE Standards can compete for and win "new
business"; after all, our clean-slate standards effort could have started a
consortium instead. At this point, I think we made the right decision.
However, an important aspect of the competition is that IEEE Standards
itself has to be willing to adjust its  procedures, where necessary, to
make sure it stays competitive. Although I'm naive, it seems as if it is
starting to do so. That's where the competition can start to pay off for us.

Roger



Dr. Roger B. Marks  <mailto:marks@nist.gov>
Chair, IEEE 802.16 Working Group on Broadband Wireless Access
National Wireless Electronic Systems Testbed (N-WEST) <http://nwest.nist.gov>
National Institute of Standards and Technology/Boulder, CO
phone: 1-303-497-3037  fax: 1-303-497-7828