1. Technology Standards for Interoperability: Islands or Bridges?
Benoît Müller
Director, Software Policy (Europe)
Business Software Alliance
26 May 2005

2. Technology Standards
Key role in fostering healthy and competitive IT ecosystem
Interconnectivity, interoperability, sharing among hardware, software and IT services
eGovernment: better communication with citizens, businesses and among administrations

3. Benefits of interoperability
Increased consumer choice
New markets
Enhanced communication
Technological progress
Increased value of IT systems
Lisbon objectives

4. Technology standards and interoperability
Interoperability comprises organisational, semantic and technical interoperability
Technology standards (= technical specifications) facilitate technical interoperability
Organisational and semantic interoperability as important and often the real challenge

5. Standards and Innovation
Voluntary, supplier-led standards are effective
Marketplace responds best to consumer demands
Government mandated standards
May have unintended consequences
Freezing technology development and inability to benefit from fast evolving technologies
Disadvantaging certain market competitors
Hindering market acceptance and penetration
Precluding multi-faceted competitive environment
→ Justified only when indispensable for major public policy objectives (e.g. pubic safety and health)

6. A result-oriented approach
Method of development is not critical factor that determines acceptance
Different ways that technology standards come about
Does the standard solve the problem it is intended?
Open standards: increasingly popular
Also role for standards developed by consensus in the market place

7. Open Standards Characteristics
Published in sufficient detail for implementation
Available publicly without cost or for reasonable fee for adoption and implementation by anyone
Patent rights necessary to implement available on reasonable and non-discriminatory terms (with or without reasonable royalty or fee)
Developed, maintained, approved or ratified by consensus in a market-driven standards-setting organisation; standards can also develop by consensus in market place

8. Open Standards - Open Source Software
To distinguish:
Open Standards – a specification
Open Source Software – an implementation

9. Promoting interoperability and innovation
Support open standards where they (1) exist and (2) are broadly supported by the market (whether RAND or RF-RAND based)
Policies promoting innovation and interoperability - rather than policies that inadvertently discourage development and adoption of standards
Recommending vs. mandating standards: see Global Standards Collaboration Resolution in favour of RAND and against mandating royalty free
Supporting standards not broadly supported, or lacking to support broad-based standards, is counter-productive to achieving interoperability
Maintain incentives to participate

10. Standards and eGovernment
Interoperability between Administrations, Businesses and Consumers requires a horizontal approach to technical interoperability and technology standards
Semantic and organisational interoperability may require specific features for eGovernment - not technical interoperability

11. Standards and eGovernment (cont.)
Result-oriented approach to standards: reaping the full benefits of existing standards that have proven their contribution to interoperability - support whether RAND or RF-RAND based
Government / industry / standards organisations partnerships to promote existing solutions and cooperate on solving gaps to successful eGovernment deployment and effective interoperability between A, B and C

12. It’s all about bridges…
Bridges between administrations, businesses and consumers, based on technologies broadly available in the market place…
…but also bridges between governments, industry and standards organisations based on a shared objective to make eGovernment succeed
Let’s not confuse different types of bridges – we need them both!

13. THANKS FOR YOUR ATTENTION
Benoît Müller