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"Collaborate on standards. Compete on quality" Or something, I'm probably butchering the quote. There's a reason we can play CDs from any manufacturer in every

"Collaborate on standards. Compete on quality" Or something, I'm probably butchering the quote. There's a reason we can play CDs from any manufacturer in every manufacturer's player. Likewise SD cards, VHS videos, DVDs... The importance of working with your competitors was well understood in the 1980's. Seem's it's a lesson we need to learn again: https://hbr.org/1989/01/collaborate-with-your-competitors-and-win https://hbr.org/1989/01/collaborate-with-your-competitors-an...

1_2__3 10y ago
Good analogy. I was thinking of this the other day - while technically the big players are in standards committees together and do work on common standards, in practice it's a bunch of corporate maneuvering that bears no resemblance at all to things like the kind of things Sony, Toshiba, Onkyo, Panasonic and other big players do when they decide they want to accomplish something. Can you imagine Google, Apple and Microsoft regularly forming cross-team working groups to specifically develop technology and associated standards to be adopted by all? They're too busy suspiciously eyeing each other's userbases to waste time on anything like long-term strategic thinking that benefits anyone but themselves. To be honest it feels like that kind of collaboration is long gone - it came about because it was necessary to actually serve consumers. But while someone who purchased a Compact Disc player is a Sony customer, a person who uses chat is not a Google customer - they're a SKU. The whole way the Internet tech industry is structured is exactly the opposite of what you'd want if you wanted to encourage collaboration. By making users and their data a commodity instead of customers there's no benefit at all to improving their general experience.
- remir 10y ago
  Well, The Alliance for Open Media is a step in the right direction. You have Cisco, Google, Mozilla, Microsoft and Netflix all on board to work on the AV1 open video codec as an alternative to HEVC. This is great and we need more of that.
sixdimensional 10y ago
For that matter, competitors collaborating often runs afoul of government regulations... EXCEPT, for in this case when competitors collaborating directly benefits the public.
eugeniub 10y ago
I don't know how well this translates to the software space. Of course, it's great that there are some standards, like HTTP, that are in common. When it comes to communication, standards like email and XMPP aren't proving that useful. Email is incredibly insecure and XMPP doesn't have much usage, and new features are lacking in both. Meanwhile, communications services that have implemented open standards in a non-federated way like WhatsApp, Signal, and Slack are soaring.

1_2__3 10y ago

Good analogy. I was thinking of this the other day - while technically the big players are in standards committees together and do work on common standards, in practice it's a bunch of corporate maneuvering that bears no resemblance at all to things like the kind of things Sony, Toshiba, Onkyo, Panasonic and other big players do when they decide they want to accomplish something. Can you imagine Google, Apple and Microsoft regularly forming cross-team working groups to specifically develop technology and associated standards to be adopted by all? They're too busy suspiciously eyeing each other's userbases to waste time on anything like long-term strategic thinking that benefits anyone but themselves. To be honest it feels like that kind of collaboration is long gone - it came about because it was necessary to actually serve consumers. But while someone who purchased a Compact Disc player is a Sony customer, a person who uses chat is not a Google customer - they're a SKU. The whole way the Internet tech industry is structured is exactly the opposite of what you'd want if you wanted to encourage collaboration. By making users and their data a commodity instead of customers there's no benefit at all to improving their general experience.

remir 10y ago
Well, The Alliance for Open Media is a step in the right direction. You have Cisco, Google, Mozilla, Microsoft and Netflix all on board to work on the AV1 open video codec as an alternative to HEVC. This is great and we need more of that.

sixdimensional 10y ago

For that matter, competitors collaborating often runs afoul of government regulations... EXCEPT, for in this case when competitors collaborating directly benefits the public.

eugeniub 10y ago

I don't know how well this translates to the software space. Of course, it's great that there are some standards, like HTTP, that are in common. When it comes to communication, standards like email and XMPP aren't proving that useful. Email is incredibly insecure and XMPP doesn't have much usage, and new features are lacking in both. Meanwhile, communications services that have implemented open standards in a non-federated way like WhatsApp, Signal, and Slack are soaring.