Comments on: Interoperability, more and less http://www.sutor.com/newsite/blog-open/?p=1372 Artifacts from my professional, personal, and virtual lives. Sat, 02 Jan 2010 12:55:44 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Chris Ward http://www.sutor.com/newsite/blog-open/?p=1372&cpage=1#comment-2294 Chris Ward Thu, 25 Jan 2007 23:36:09 +0000 http://www.sutor.com/newsite/blog-open/?p=1372#comment-2294 We've had this many times before, usually with IBM as the dominant vendor. Examples are EBCDIC 'punch-card' data representation System/360 floating-point format SNA networking GDDM printer drivers IBM still makes a pile of money out of all of these; but there is no way that IBM would ask ISO to declare them as standards in the face of ASCII, IEEE floating-point, TCP/IP networking, and PDF printers. The 'joker in the pack' with respect to Personal Computers seems to be the growth of public broadband. On the one hand, interested parties are finding each other and defining ISO-standard office productivity formats. On the other, according to the BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6298641.stm , about 150 million of the 600 million or so Personal Computers on public Internet are running software other than what their owners expect. Apparently, "Criminals may overwhelm the web." 'whatever the solution, the fight against botnets was a "war" that could only be won if all parties - regulators, governments, telecoms firms, computer users and hardware and software makers - worked together.' And if they're not running what their owners expect, the chance that they'll be able to interchange documents reliably with other Personal Computers is declining all the time. Now, I know IBM doesn't develop, manufacture, market, or distribute these Personal Computer things any more, so maybe doesn't feel much responsibility; but what are we supposed to do ? Are IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, ATT, Google and Symantec supposed to bury the hatchet to work together like the BBC thinks we need to ? Who's going to work out our commercial terms of reference, and who's going to pay ? And what would be the consequence if we did ? We’ve had this many times before, usually with IBM as the dominant vendor. Examples are
EBCDIC ‘punch-card’ data representation
System/360 floating-point format
SNA networking
GDDM printer drivers
IBM still makes a pile of money out of all of these; but there is no way that IBM would ask ISO to declare them as standards in the face of ASCII, IEEE floating-point, TCP/IP networking, and PDF printers.

The ‘joker in the pack’ with respect to Personal Computers seems to be the growth of public broadband.

On the one hand, interested parties are finding each other and defining ISO-standard office productivity formats.

On the other, according to the BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6298641.stm , about 150 million of the 600 million or so Personal Computers on public Internet are running software other than what their owners expect. Apparently, “Criminals may overwhelm the web.”
‘whatever the solution, the fight against botnets was a “war” that could only be won if all parties – regulators, governments, telecoms firms, computer users and hardware and software makers – worked together.’
And if they’re not running what their owners expect, the chance that they’ll be able to interchange documents reliably with other Personal Computers is declining all the time.

Now, I know IBM doesn’t develop, manufacture, market, or distribute these Personal Computer things any more, so maybe doesn’t feel much responsibility; but what are we supposed to do ? Are IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, ATT, Google and Symantec supposed to bury the hatchet to work together like the BBC thinks we need to ? Who’s going to work out our commercial terms of reference, and who’s going to pay ?

And what would be the consequence if we did ?

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