2. Standards Development Is a new standard needed or are there applicable existing standards? How will a new standard affect my company’s market share? How will a new standard affect the size of the market? What are my company’s strategies and product plans?
3. Standards Development What are the strategies and product plans of my company’s competitors? Is one standard sufficient or is a suite of standards necessary to achieve my company’s goals? In what Standard Developing Organizations (SDO) should my company participate ?
4. Standards Development What is involved in developing a new standard? How many people and how much time does standards development take?
5. Is a new standard needed or are there applicable existing standards? Can your product be built with components and tools provided by more than one vendor? If yes, do they leverage a de-facto or published standard? Does your company intend to provide all the functionality not available by COTS components? If no, do you eventually want multiple suppliers of your needed COTS components?
6. How will a new standard affect my companies market share? A standard can enable competition which can hurt your market share. A subcontractor that developed one of your components my become a competitor A standard may grow the market by increasing demand and you may have more volume with less market share.
7. How will a new standard affect the size of the market? The market may grow as a result of the standard but you can control your competitors via licensing of technology provided the Standards Developing Organization allows RAND contributions.
8. What are my company’s strategies and product plans? What products have advanced features that can be enabled if there are standardized basic features? Can you hurt a competitor by making his key revenue generating product a commodity?
9. What are the strategies and product plans of my company’s competitors? Might a competitor be trying to hurt you by making your products which have dominant market share a commodity? Is a competitor trying to enable a particular design that is different from yours and the competitor serves to gain by both RAND terms and technology familiarity?
10. Is one standard sufficient or is a suite of standards necessary to achieve my company’s goals? A system may have several interoperating components where each component performs a different service. In such cases, several interoperating standards are necessary. Examples: CD, DVD, CPXe, MPV, USB Device Classes, Internet Protocols.
11. In what Standard Developing Organizations (SDO) should my company participate ? A company should monitor or be proactive in SDOs that provide standards for their products. A company needs to understand the Intellectual Property (IP) requirements that SDO participation may incur. It may be best not to participate if your company has IP to protect.
12. What is involved in developing a new standard? This depends on the particular SDO. It also depends if one is considering industry consortia (UPnP, USB, W3C, I3A) or Gorvernment/Political bodies (ANSI, ECMA,ISO). Mandatory Meetings, Travel, Voting Rights, Fees, Procedures, Legal Requirements, Membership Levels.
13. How many people and how much time does standards development take? Depends if you “monitor” or “actively contribute.” Monitors pay fees, send representatives, and monitor the involved IP. Contributors also develop proposals, critique counter proposals , and “wage war.” A contributing company spends 3x to 5x more effort than one that monitors. At best 1.5 years are involved, can be more.
14. Standards Development If your business feels that it needs to develop a new standard or participate in the development of a standards, I can help you to determine an optimum strategy.
