Microsoft and the Standards Community – Shades of Qualcomm Early 1990s

Implications: Reminds me of Qualcomm in the early days of the CDMA standardStandards development is about compromiseAll the vendors want to make a dollar; so if you give the other guy a shot at making some money he will give you a shot as well.Standards should never be rubber stampedStandards can be developed properly (and yes it will take time) and the vendors can still make moneyA standard developed as a community ultimately results in a better product.

Analysis:

It is easy to believe that Microsoft’s aggressive tactics to get their proposal approved by the ISO and the IEC were met with disdain. However, I frankly do not understand why Microsoft is pushing for its platform to become the standard. In many ways, it is a defacto standard. Of course, the idea of possibly being paid licensing fees might be the reason why Microsoft is pushing so hard to have ISO and IEC designate its Office Open XML as an international standard.

Frankly this reminds me of when Qualcomm first approached the TIA with CDMA. Qualcomm did push hard to have its intellectual property standardized but they had all of their major customers, NYNEX Mobile, Pactel Cellular, Bell Atlantic Mobiles, GTE Mobile, Bell Mobility of Canada, Qwest NewVector, Alltel Mobile, and Rural Cellular demanding the vendors comply. The standards left open the possibility for independent vendors to develop their own proprietary technologies for their own products. However, the standard would still result in some kind of licensing fee being paid to Qualcomm.

If this is what Microsoft is hoping for? Wireless XML exists already and will figure prominently in the next generation of mobiles. Is Microsoft trying to get into the handset now and simply control the market?  If the ISO and IEC standardize Microsoft's Office Open XML, we could be facing a disaster for terminal device development in the wireless space.  If MIcrosoft could dictate what went into the handset we could be looking at another Microsoft controlled PC environment.  Not even Qualcomm has the kind of moxy to do something so overt and blatant - especially after their Broadcom nightmare.

I give any vendor credit for showing a lot of moxy. However, Microsoft ought to think about how Qualcomm did it. True, in 1992 there were a lot of engineers and vendors who absolutely despised Qualcomm. The various vendors and carriers sat down with Qualcomm and figured out of way of developing a standard that enabled all parties to vote for the standard without thinking they sold out. There are still some hard feelings but you know the standard was worked on for nearly two years and Qualcomm never had to sign away its patent rights. A sufficient number of holes were left in the standard that enabled vendors to develop their own products without necessarily needing to pay a huge licensing fee to Qualcomm. Qualcomm’s approach was about collecting lots of quarters and dollar bills not collecting every dollar bill and quarter. I suggest Microsoft read the TIA’s CDMA standard. The reading might give them a few ideas plus Microsoft might start thinking that this will take a few more years to get through this effort. In other words, Microsoft stop trying to get your opponents to just say yes; find out what it will take to get their yes vote without you giving away the store and you taking it over.  Remember the telecom and infocom businesses are big pies and everyone wants a piece of them - be nice.