Why Standards Matter…And When They Don’t
The year was 1992, Disney’s Aladdin was the top grossing movie, Garth Brooks had the top-selling album in the US, and I was a freshly minted SE. Being a studious and diligent SE, I read up on all the gear sold by the integrator I worked for, and I decided that the Wellfleet BCN was the product of choice for our customers based on its hardware architecture and the impressive list of standards to which it laid claim.
And, then a funny thing happened…I learned that, while customers value standards compliance, what they value even more are networks that work and do what they need them to do. And herein lies the inherent contradiction of networking standards and the constant tension between innovation and standards.
Ultimately customers look to us to address their problems: “I need my network to _________ (fill in the blank) so I can support the needs of my business—oh, and I’d like that ASAP, please” . Luckily, our customer base is not shy, so when we see a trend, we move to address it and put solutions out there for our customers. This is where innovation is critical—having the ability to continually move the ball forward to ensure networking continues to meet the needs of markets that are themselves continually evolving.
But, ultimately, standardization is the end goal. Without standardization, innovation cannot scale. Time and again, we have seen that if a technology is balkanized, it stalls because no one wants to choose poorly (on a somewhat related note, I have a fine collection of HD-DVDs I’m willing to part with at a fair price).
Most of you are probably familiar with some version of the technology adoption lifecycle chart below, made popular by Geoffrey Moore in his seminal work “Crossing the Chasm”.
Posted by Omar Sultan at 01:07AM PST
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