Crossroads of Information Technology Standards (1990) / Chapter Skim
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Pages 17-32
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From page 17... ...
In addition to questions about information technology standards, the participants were asked to characterize themselves in terms of their roles in the information technology industry. It was hypothesized that their views would depend on affiliations or level of management responsibility.
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Question 1: What is the place of a strong information technology industry? The written responses focused on the following points: (1)
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In particular, electronic data interchange is only possible in those industry subsegments that are led by dominant players or by trade associations. The nation or group of nations that implements standards most widely will have significant cost advantages in world markets.
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(6) Foreign competitors exploit U.S.
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The written responses focused on the following points: (1) Interoperability requires that standards lead technology, but the adoption process is too slow.
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As with proposals to modify antitrust laws, there was no ground swell of support for modification of the copyright laws to protect unique expressions within standards. This and the other suggestions in the group of answers were not sufficiently specific to provide a basis for recommendations or conclusions.
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organizations, top management does not appreciate the benefits and costs of adequate participation in the standardization processes. The United States should be a leader in the standardization process through the international standards bodies, which are the International Organization for Standardization (ISO)
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is perceived as a reactive body and its present structure does not provide leadership on information technology standards. It accredits standardswriting organizations and waits for those organizations to develop draft standards through established procedures.
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The present legal structure does not need to be greatly modified. The checks and balances in the standards developing process need not be the problem that makes the process inordinately slow; it is the lack of leadership from the top in government, in industry, and in the standards developing organizations.
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~ 0 r r - —-A —~ RESPONSE TO THE CHALLENGE Based on the preceding identification of the challenges, a straw-man proposal for improving work on information technology standards was presented to five cross-industry discussion groups which were established on the second day of the workshop. The topic was presented as follows: A proposal has emerged to create an organization at the national level to address the following information technology issues: Provide a vision of the future supported by the executive levels of industry and government Establish an architecture and systems plan consistent with that vision Coordinate the work of already established standards working groups Put in place a management plan for initiating action early and achieving agreed upon goals Promote rapid prototyping and implementation of newly approved standards The groups were specifically asked: 1.
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From page 27... ...
The Office of Science and Technology Policy within the Executive Office of the President is considered the most appropriate government agency to convene the advisory group. The Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy should arrange for an ad hoc blue-ribbon study by top-level people from industry and government to establish a vision and high-level architecture for an infonnafion technology infrastructure.
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The discussion groups were asked to prioritize the possible approaches to accelerating the implementation of standards at the national and international levels. The order was as follows: Top level management support and pressure for agreement Starting the right track early · Life-cycle planning with phased introduction Streamlined approval process Rapid prototyping and problem resolutions Reduced fear of antitrust suits All discussion groups gave the highest ranking to top level management support of the standards process.
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29 the bottom by each group. The workshop participants, while recognizing that fear of antitrust prosecution may exist, were not persuaded that this fear was justified.
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Appendixes 31
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