Does Google need a standards office pronto?

Google is increasingly in the middle of multiple efforts like Android and standards development. The problem: Google doesn't have a centralized standards office to manage its efforts. According to open source consultant Stephen Walli, Google needs a standards office as its reach grows.

Walli writes in a blog post:

In the next two to five years, Google will be challenged by a technology standards effort that it will need to encourage or manage in its mission to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. Such efforts cannot be erected quickly (as demonstrated most recently by Microsoft), and preparations for that day should begin in the near future. Google is also in a unique position to turn the standards development process on its head.

In other words, Google needs http://standards.google.com.

Walli then outlines how this standards office would come together and makes a great case for such an effort from Google. Walli recommends that Google keep the standards team small, split the group into practitioners and participates to evaluate the IP risk and rewards and coordinate insiders and outsiders.

Walli points out that Google has a lot of building blocks lying around, but creating a standards group won't be easy. Nevertheless, his idea is a good one and worth considering.