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IT'S ALL ABOUT STANDARDS

Brian Grainger

brian@grainger1.freeserve.co.uk

Love them, or hate them, Standards are useful and the manipulation of them for their own purposes is something at which Microsoft are very adept.

We all know how useful Standards can be. Because the Intel based PC has become a de facto standard we have a plethora of different hardware and software that can be connected and we can get so much more use out of them. Then there is the case of video recorders. In the beginning there were 3 different standards of which VHS and Betamax were the two main protagonists. It was not until the public decided that they wanted VHS and Betamax was consigned to the dustbin that video recording, video recorders and watching of films at home became commonplace.

On the other hand, developers find standards restricting. Changes in standards are slow moving and hinder the progress the developer wants to make. This is particularly true of software developers who rely on constant change to earn their revenue from constantly changing software. Ideally, they want to be setting the standards, which is what Microsoft did with MSDOS, Windows and Microsoft Office. The drawback for the consumer is that they use this stranglehold to create a monopoly situation.

In the rise of the Internet we were very fortunate that Microsoft did not initially see it as an important medium. The Standards of the Internet, HTML for example, were not initially controlled by Microsoft because they were not interested. As the World Wide Web became popular, Microsoft did try to corrupt HTML standards by creating new features that only their browser, Internet Explorer, would render. However, unlike in other fields, Microsoft have not wrested control of the language of the Web from the W3C entity, an independent body that drives the standardisation of the web via HTML, XML, etc.

A news story earlier this year that, from now on, Baseball would only be streamed on the web in Windows Media format, rather than also being provided in Real Media format, brought home to me how standards are more important to competition than the software that uses them. By driving home such a deal Microsoft ensures Baseball fans will have to use the Microsoft media player to view the game. This will be especially true if the streaming contains Digital Rights Management (DRM) code. Believe it or not there are non-Microsoft media players that will play Microsoft codecs, but it would not be legal to crack the DRM code - in the US at least. This is why DRM is so important - or so vile - depending on whether you are a provider or a consumer of content.

Apple are doing the same thing with the i-Pod. The formatting of the music from i-Tunes is specific to Apple and can only be played on the i-Pod.

Music and video is where the standards war is being waged on a big scale. Each of the main players are vying to establish their own format as the de facto standard, so that they may control their part of the industry. It would be so much more beneficial to the consumer if they could demand that all media was provided in the same standard format, not linked to any specific company. Then we would have true competition and the best media player would win out.

A similar war is brewing in the Office products arena. Since the advent of Windows and until recently, Microsoft Office has ruled the roost. It has created its own document formats and been pretty much the best product of its type. Other companies, such as Lotus and Borland have tried to create competing product but have failed. In my opinion they have failed because the products were not as good - although part of the reason may be that Microsoft have inside knowledge as to how Windows works so they can make their products work better.

Recently, Microsoft have had a real competitor in the form of Open Office Org. There are also individual products, such as AbiWord in word processing and Gnumeric in spreadsheets, that make a good fist of reading Microsoft document formats and are quite good alternative programs.

In the past, you wanted to use Microsoft Office so that you could read documents that had been created in its de facto standard format. Now you have a choice and more and more people are looking at the alternatives.

Open Office Org has led the way in trying to evolve document formats based on XML, which is again independently controlled by W3C. The situation now is that an independent body has come up with an XML based document format standard called Open Document Format, ODF. Open Office Org immediately agreed to use it.

When the US state of Massachusetts demanded that a standardised format would be used for their documents, to avoid lock-in to one supplier, Microsoft took notice. There was a threat to their dominance. If everyone in government, local or national, demanded this there would be a major impact on Microsoft's business. Microsoft had to react.

So did Microsoft alter its products to produce ODF documents? No - they decided to produce their own 'standard' and get it ratified by ECMA. This is the European Computer Manufacturers Association, a smaller standards organisation that by their title is clearly not independent of manufacturers. Microsoft are happy to deal with ECMA because it means they remain in control of the standard's development.

In May, ODF was finally accepted by the International Standards Organisation, ISO. It is now up to consumers to demand that this format is the only one allowed. Microsoft will soon come into line and we will again have true competition and a choice of products to use.

So far there have been two major attempts to combat the Microsoft business approach - both based on products.

The US anti trust case initially centred on the bundling of Internet Explorer with Windows. This was a bad argument from the outset. We had competing products. If people decided not to use them then so be it. There WAS competition.

The Europe anti-trust case has followed a similar line, but centred on the bundling of the Windows Media Player with Windows. There seems more of an argument here, because of the way WMA, WMV, etc. are primarily a Microsoft only product. However, I believe it is also doomed to fail.

Europe has forced a version of Windows to be created that does not contain Windows Media Player. Have you seen it? No - me neither. No PC manufacturer has installed it. It's obvious. Who would sell a product which was crippled by not being able to play a significant portion of the media on the web? If Europe did succeed, all Microsoft would have to do is create more deals like the streaming of Baseball and the consumers would demand Windows Media Player was there.

The key to the problem is not the products, Internet Explorer or Windows Media Player. It is the standards.

Standards MUST be in independent hands. W3C holds the Internet standards so we are pretty safe there. ODF could be the office document standard if we apply the right pressure. The real problem is multimedia standards. The consumer wants multimedia products - it is a big market. We must have independently controlled standards or it will be Microsoft, Apple or whoever demanding we buy multiple media players if we wish to have the widest choice of content. As I have said before, in the days of vinyl we did not have to buy a Columbia record player to play a Cliff Richard record and then buy a Parlophone record player to play a Beatles record. They all played on the same Dansette. Why should it be any different now? Why are consumers willing to let it be different now?

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