The text below is an article that I originally wrote in partnership with Steve Mutkoski, a colleague from our regional office here in Singapore.
We had a few goals that we were trying to meet when we wrote this. The first was to think through some of the important lessons that we learned during the time that passed while OpenXML passed through the ISO process. The second was to talk through some of the work items that we have at the end of the process that need to be undertaken to continue to build standards skill capacity in the countries around Asia and ensure that countries involvement in international ICT standards continues to strengthen.
Most important of all was looking at how we would keep people involved in defining and reviewing international standards beyond the end of the standardization of OpenXML. While it certainly was not easy for those of us from Microsoft, it was very encouraging to see the number of people that came forward to get involved with the IS29500 process, and the depth of thought that they brought with them. It is a little disheartening to see many of those people filter away at this point, and we wanted to think though what it would take to keep them at the table.
The Growing Relevance of ICT Standards in a Connected World
Oliver Bell (Regional Technology Officer for APAC) & Steve Mutkoski (Regional Director for Interoperability and Innovation for APAC)
Many countries have limited experience with international standards, and that has been largely in what are referred to as traditional industrial standards (relating to standards in the industries of manufacturing and construction). The future holds some important changes, as a growing number of countries– and increasingly developing countries– will see new opportunities and a rising need to be involved in the development of international ICT standards.
The need for greater involvement in the international ICT standards arena is being driven by citizens and businesses, who are increasingly relying on ICT in their daily lives in ways that fully utilize the growing connectivity and an increasing presence and power of computing devices. Simply put, rapid access and the ability to share information are now issues of critical importance to citizens around the globe.
These two pressures, connectivity and the need for increased data portability, are driving the purchasing decisions of governments, business from the financial to manufacturing sector and private citizens as they look for technology solutions. Because standards are seen as one way of solving these important issues relating to connectivity and data portability, all countries are seeking to get involved in the development of ICT related standards.
In this article, we take a look at some of the challenges facing countries as they seek to get more deeply involved in the international standards process. We also discuss some of the investments that Microsoft is making to enable countries, along with local industry and academics, to better participate in the international standards process.
Understanding the Challenges of Broader Participation
In March 2008, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) voted to recognize a document format technology known as Ecma Office OpenXML (“OpenXML”) as an ISO standard. If we look back on the 16 months of time during which Open XML proceeded through the ISO approval process it provides an interesting case study in the challenges facing governments who wish to participate in these increasingly important technology standards. It also provides us an opportunity to reflect on what can be done to better meet the expectations of industry, governments and customers who wish to participate in the international standards process.
Process Challenges: One of the most obvious challenges for countries was understanding the standards process itself. The rules of international standards are not things that engineers, business people or government officials learn through formal education and indeed there are few places to learn these rules aside from jumping in and participating. For countries that are relatively new to international standards, there were often no “veteran” standards participants who were well versed in the ISO rules and procedures. But even among those who had participated in previous standards development activity, there was not always full agreement about the implications of one phase of the process as OpenXML moved through toward approval. Indeed, comments of some observers in September 2007 after the conclusion of the first ballot suggested that the proposed standard had “failed.” Yet as we now see there were at least six more months of activities during which time the proposed standard was modified and improved, such that a sufficient number of votes were obtained for approval.
The challenges around process reveals a need for better education within what is now a much broader and more inclusive worldwide group of standards participants. It is clear the IT industry participants who have historically played a major role in the IT standardization arena are well placed to help provide this needed capacity building for new participants. Equally important, these established participants to the standards process need to focus resources on reviewing the current rules and procedures (in the case of OpenXML, the “JTC1 Directives”) to insure they are written in such a manner that new participants will be able to quickly learn and comprehend them. Many of these rules and procedures were built in layers over time which has impacted the clarity of the end result. Moreover, some of these rules and procedures were settled on at a time when a small number of people in a single room were working on a standard. Today we have hundreds of interested participants spread around the world and it is important the rules and procedures evolve to reflect that new reality.
Technical Resource Challenges: The months of discussions and deliberations proceeding the approval of OpenXML as an ISO standard also demonstrated that even though issues of data portability are of high importance to nearly all countries, many countries did not have technical experts in the particular domain of XML data formats.
It was impressive that countries were able to pull together experts from government, private sector and academia and even more impressive that participants worked so diligently to develop growing expertise in the domain of XML formats during the review process. Given the significant interest in this standard and high learning curve that many countries faced in evaluating it from a technical standpoint, it will be important for industry to partner effectively with governments and academia. This partnership will allow them to share knowledge about areas of technology moving through the international standards process and that- like XML document format functionality- will be of significant interest to the country and its citizens.
Another challenge will be continuing to harness that new expertise in XML document format technology and integrating it into the global community of technical experts who work on the future of these formats. Just as the ISO approval process was new to many participants, so too the maintenance process of the now-approved standard will be a new experience for many of the participants to the process. It is vital that industry, governments and ISO itself, work to make sure this new expertise does not die on the vine now that the vote is done. That requires that key participants to date carry their work forward to the steering committee (SC34) that will be responsible for the ongoing maintenance of the new Open XML standard.
Fiscal Resource Challenges: During our many meetings with participants involved in the approval of OpenXML, we heard first hand that this process was expensive and that many countries struggled to find ways to cover those costs. Technical experts made significant contributions of time without pay, but costs for meeting space, program management and then travel to Geneva Switzerland for the February 2008 “Ballot Resolution Meeting” all added up.
It is clear a growing involvement in the international standards process may tax the existing financial models that many country National Bodies rely on for support in the wake of little (or no) government funding. Traditionally, many National Bodies have relied on a business model based on selling copies of specifications (including many international standards which are made into national standards) within their country. With growing focus on international standards, this model likely will not be sufficient and National Bodies will need to explore alternatives, including industry funded models such as membership fees to participate in National Body meetings or increased government support.
There are also opportunities for industry to work collaboratively to created scholarship funds that could be tapped into for expenses for travel to key standards meetings. There are also some great examples of government support to encourage broader standard participation, where industry participants or academics who are voted into project manager or other key international standards leadership positions will receive a fixed grant from the government to cover their expenses to fulfill the duties of that position (for instance travel costs).
Challenges around the roles of industry and government in ICT standards development: As previously mentioned, a number of governments who participated in the evaluation of OpenXML were relatively new to the development of ICT standards in the international arena. ICT standards fall into an area of standards typically viewed as voluntary or consensus based in nature. Industry often plays a primary role in the development of these standards, with governments playing a smaller or even non-existent role.
Governments with previous experience primarily with standards of a more mandatory nature (such as building or other safety standards) may have different expectations about the relative roles of government and industry in the ICT standards space. Within the realm of ICT standards, history has shown that governments are wise to let industry participants and the marketplace work out the best technology solutions, both in terms of standards development and approval. An important lesson in all this is that the standards process has to include a cross section of society, particularly those who will be heavy users of the technology, and should clearly include a healthy dose of industry participants. As with many areas of technology policy government’s role is likely that of the facilitator, balancing the views of all these participants, and not the ultimate decision maker.
Challenges around global nature of ICT standards and need for global inclusion: If we look back at the number of countries that have participated in the development of particular document format standards over the last decade (from HTML, to ODF, to OpenXML), we can see a steady trend of increased global participation. This rising tide of involvement, as governments increasingly see the importance of ICT standards and want to participate, is not limited to developed economies or even those developing economies where conventional wisdom suggests that the ICT industry is set for big growth.
The traditional players in the international standards process- developed countries and large multinationals- need to come to terms with the fact many new countries will participate in a growing manner in the development of ICT standards. The key here will be support from the traditional players, encouraging deeper and continued participation by these new players and offering them resources and assistance so that they can effectively participate. One outcome may well be adjusting rules and procedures so as to make participation less burdensome on these new participants.
Challenges around the nature and role of technology standards- International ICT standards are only one dynamic in a fast moving technology ecosystem and misunderstandings about the nature and role of ICT standards have the potential to harm or distort that important ecosystem.
While the idea of a single, unified standard has initial appeal, the reality is that as new innovations come and go, often completely new standards will emerge to displace earlier ones. Freezing the world on a single existing standard in any particular domain would adversely impact the rapid pace of innovation in the ICT sector. Moreover, having competition among standards– particularly publicly documented standards– is good for the marketplace, allowing greater competition in a market segment. Industry can and should reduce the burdens on the marketplace of multiple standards by insuring these standards are interoperable to the greatest degree.
Some participants struggled with the role of so-called “de facto” standards– technologies that are standards because of overwhelming market adoption– as opposed to “de jure” standards– technologies that are formally voted in as a standard by one body or another. The reality is that the technologies that underlie a standard are rarely created in a vacuum and increasingly the lines between de facto and de jure standards are merging and blurring. In particular, the industry is seeing significant benefits to taking market made de facto standards (which have proven their relevance and ability to meet customer needs) and moving that technology through a formal standards process. The outcome is a market proven technology with a publicly available specification and broader, more inclusive, community of participants who can contribute to the future direction of the technology.
Having a broader community contributing to the future direction of the standard is a major benefit for the creator of the original de facto standard. History has demonstrated that no standard is ever perfect when it is first released, or often even after a few revisions. The reality we are coming to see is that ICT standards will see constant updating, improvement and expansion. And the broader the community involved in that process, the stronger the improvements to the standard.
That improvement process (and its steady output) raises another interesting quality of the standards process in the ICT space: as soon as a version of a standard is released (and probably even before that), implementers are already experimenting with new and potentially better modifications and extensions. This is the natural result of the huge demands consumers make for product innovation in the ICT. An important lesson is that the standards development and evolution process is not the linear process that some might expect. The first version of a specification that makes it through the standards approval process is unlikely to be perfect, but is usually good enough to get the process moving. But the formal approval should not “freeze” the technology. Instead, innovation around the standard continues, with periodic snapshots that attempt to capture what the majority of implementers are doing at a given time, resulting in a new “version” of the standard.
Looking at this complex process of approval and improvement, some participants,new to the ICT standards process, are prone to ask “Does the fact that a standard undergoes revisions (even frequent) mean it wasn’t ready to be standardized?” Standards such as 802.11 for wireless LAN connectivity provides some useful guidance, we know consumers are better off having had the benefits of nearly a decade of use of earlier versions of the technology while implementers grew that technology into its current (and far more mature form).
Microsoft is taking substantial steps to address or alleviate these challenges:
As it becomes more deeply involved in the international standards process, Microsoft is committed to helping participants work through the challenges outlined in this article. These Microsoft initiatives fall into two distinct buckets: (1) external capacity building initiatives that are directly related to standards and (2) other corporate activities and initiatives that have as an end goal a reduction in the pressure on the standards process.
In the first category, Microsoft has already begun a robust dialogue with key participants (including a host of new participants) to the process. The activities include capacity building around:
o Process issues- In addition to one-to-one outreach to particular countries, we are working to regional activities that will allow standards decision-makers from the region to share their understanding of how the process works (and possibly how it could work better). We are also dedicated to learning from participants about the areas where they think the process can be improved, and through our participation on international standards rules committees will be advocating for appropriate changes to process where necessary to address issues raised to us.
o Funding challenges and business model issues- We are engaged in discussions with National Bodies about ways they can conquer funding issues. In addition, we are collaborating with international thought leaders on innovative solutions around inclusion for key participants who lack funding.
o Policy issues- We have worked (at times with key ICT industry associations) to bring internationally recognized academics and standards thought leaders into the region to participate in workshops with policymakers around the region facilitating open discussion around issues such as the role of industry in ICT standards creation, the relationship between interoperability and standards and the intellectual property issues that arise in the standards context. Involvement of the future direction of OpenXML- Microsoft is supportive of a more open and inclusive maintenance process at SC34 that allows the great contributions from technical experts to more easily continue to flow in to the future versions of the standard
In the second category, Microsoft has taken a top to bottom view of its development processes to look for ways in which changes at Microsoft can help address challenges in the international ICT standards process. These initiatives and investments include:
o Trained Product and Field resources- We have committed additional product and field personnel, with their responsibilities focusing on standards work in a particular country or product.
Microsoft’s interoperability initiatives (see http://www.microsoft.com/interop/), including the Microsoft Interoperability Principles (see http://www.microsoft.com/interop/principles/default.mspx)- We recognize that the increased focus on ICT standards is related to the understanding that standards can help solve interoperability issues. But we also recognize that there is more to solving interoperability issues than just developing standards.
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