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 The Winding Road of Industry Standards
Our sponsors frequently call on MITRE as a trusted partner to promote government interests by spurring the development of standards to which potential vendors will adhere. Indeed, the creation of industry standards can be an excellent approach to technology transfer and can provide benefits to the broadest possible audience. An industry standard reflects an agreement on how something technical will be performed, produced, or measured. It usually represents a choice among competing alternatives—one to which a significant portion of an industry adheres, so that those who do not adhere find themselves at an economic disadvantage. (Think VHS versus Beta VCRs.) When companies—software developers, for instance—cannot sell to each other because their products are incompatible, they have a financial incentive to cooperate by deciding on one particular way of doing things. The government benefits from standards just as the public does, although it often has more clout to get an industry to create a standard. If the government's way of doing something, or the proprietary standard it has chosen, can be transformed into an industry-wide standard, that standard can stimulate a marketplace by reducing barriers to entry. Then the marketplace expands, driving down prices, and the government can get what it needs more easily and inexpensively. Government can also mandate creation of a new standard, as it did with the High-Level Architecture modeling and simulation system (see DOD Benefits from MITRE-Developed Simulation Standard). Sometimes, as with Microsoft Windows, a proprietary product becomes a de facto industry standard when other companies recognize that it is in their best interest to adhere to it. A commercial organization can propose new technology for consideration as a standard by bringing it to an existing industry standards group—a private, independently functioning body whose procedures meet certain legal criteria of openness and fairness. That group may readily accept it, or accept it after the members of the group refine it, or reject it. If no appropriate standards group exists, an innovator faces the daunting task of establishing such a group. Another option is to create a de facto standard by achieving consensus in a sizable portion of an industry, as MITRE did with Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE), a list of common names for publicly known information security vulnerabilities and exposures (see Industry Standard Helps Identify Gaps and Overlaps in Computer Security Lingo). The greatest challenge MITRE faced in establishing standards of different sorts, such as CVE and HLA, was getting the various public and private stakeholders to work together. To agree to do so, potential members of the standard-setting group must believe that there is either some significant value in collaborating on a standard or some significant risk in not collaborating. Even if the parties seem willing to cooperate, those who have a stake in the result must ensure that the group is not "hijacked" by one or several members, or redirected in a way that favors some members over others. If the focus of the standard is too narrow or too broad, individual members may not see enough benefit for themselves. The establishment of an industry standard takes a significant investment of staff and financial resources. Establishing a new technology as an industry standard, however, can be the best way to ensure transfer to the widest possible marketplace and thus the greatest benefit to the government and the public. |
Solutions That Make a Difference.® |
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Throughout
the United States, a phone number has 10 digits, a modern VCR uses the
VHS videotape format, and distance is measured in inches, feet, and miles.
Using the same system often simplifies life for both the government and
the public. However, determining what that system should be, gaining the
necessary consensus, and implementing products consistent with that system
are not simple matters.