Conflict and consensus: the role of standards

Sometime in the future, we will all look back at January 1998 and laugh about the current conflicts in the technology industry. A hindsight perspective inevitably generates a few chuckles, but it also allows us to recognize that conflict is essential to innovation. Conflict energizes the entire process. If there were no conflict (over market shares, protocols, pricing structures, formats, programming languages, platforms or standards), innovation would almost certainly stagnate. While conflict ensures that technology will continue to change and grow stronger, it also ensures a certain forced honesty. As one organization “invades” the turf of another-especially when it comes to standards activities-we get to see the cards held in the hands of the players. It usually takes a few years, however, before we´re able to smile at all the poker faces