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A word about standards, or lack thereof

By | November 19, 2010, 3:16pm PST

Summary: The Chunnel: a fine example of standards resolution?

Quote of the week:

“If the French and the English can agree on one set of standards for a train passing underneath the English Channel (and now running German trains!), then why can’t the IT industry standardize a first name, last name. and street address? It will eventually, but why didn’t it happen earlier? The easy answer is because they (we!) didn’t have to. It was much more efficient to sell tools to tame the chaos…. So how do we go about it? The obvious answer is to enable machines to read human communication instead of the other way around. The moment the paradigm shifts and data becomes readable to non-technical people first and machines second, will be the moment that machines begin to help us with our daily chores. They will finally understand what we want and need.”

- Juergen Geck, CTO, Open-Xchange, quoted in GigaOm Ostatic.

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Standards, Machine, Quality, Business Operations, Joe McKendrick

Joe McKendrick is an author, consultant and speaker specializing in trends and developments shaping the technology industry.

Disclosure

Joe McKendrick

Joe McKendrick is an independent consultant, editor and speaker.

Joe has performed project work (white papers, articles, blogs, research and presentations) for the following companies in the IT marketspace:

  • CBS Interactive/CNET/ZDNet (this blog)
  • ebizQ
  • Evans Data
  • Gartner
  • IBM
  • Informatica
  • IDC
  • Microsoft
  • Systinet/HP
  • Teradata
  • Unisphere Reseach, a division of Information Today, Inc.
  • WebLayers

Joe has also performed research work for the following sponsoring organizations in partnership with Unisphere Research, a division of Information Today, Inc.

  • IBM
  • Luminex
  • Noetix
  • Oracle Corp.
  • Teradata
  • Informatica
  • International Oracle Users Group
  • Oracle Applications Users Group
  • Professional Association for SQL Server
  • International DB2 Users Group
  • International Sybase Users Group
  • SHARE (IBM large systems users group)

Biography

Joe McKendrick

Joe McKendrick is an author and independent analyst who tracks the impact of information technology on management and markets. Joe is co-author, along with 16 leading industry leaders and thinkers, of the SOA Manifesto, which outlines the values and guiding principles of service orientation. He also speaks frequently on Enterprise 2.0 and SOA topics at industry events and Webcasts, and serves on the program committee for this year's SOA & Cloud Symposium in London. As an independent analyst, he has also authored numerous research reports in partnership with Unisphere Research, a division of Information Today, Inc. for user groups such as SHARE, Oracle Applications Users Group, and International DB2 Users Group. In a previous life, Joe served as director of the Administrative Management Society (AMS), an international professional association dedicated to advancing knowledge within the IT and business management fields. He is a graduate of Temple University.

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RE: A word about standards, or lack thereof
kitko 20th Nov 2010
"If the French and the English can agree on one set of standards for a train passing underneath the English Channel..."

It's La Manche happy
Both countries use metric system - Britain doesn't appear to do so, by all planning, building, engineering is done in metric system units. A road sign needs to be 200 meters before the junction. But it needs to indicate distance in yards. The result is that not a single road sign in the UK is correct happy
Anyway, there wasn't really much standardization there. As for the trains, British simply had to go for whatevere French side had to offer. German trains for the Eurotunnel will need to conform to Eurotunnel specs.

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