Standards and the Indian IT industry

As the industries evolve, the emphasis shifts from “carrier” to “content” and then to “control”. For example, in the early days of railroads, those who made the “rails” were the kings; after 3, 4 decades no one talked about the “rail road builders” (carrier); emphasis shifted to trains and logistics (content); later, to the “gauges”, “standards” and “signaling” (control). The same extends to airlines, roads and even to newspapers. Vendors controlling paper production and printing machinery (carrier) gave way to newspapers (content), and finally to editors (control). It is not that carrier and content will go away; it is just the shift of the emphasis. IT industry is going to be the same; computers (carriers) will give way to content; Google and Yahoo represent the shift already. But the real power will be with standards (control); with Indian IT industry slowly taking a leadership role globally, they should start putting emphasis on “control”, which in IT would be very much related to standards. Somehow standards are NOT the “in thing” among the professionals in the Indian IT industry. Even our students do not think much about the standards; I tell them that they cannot IM (Instant Message) so easily to their friends (on different networks and using a variety of handsets), but for standardization; SMS is no different. Amongst colleagues, while being on the Conference Committee of a prestigious conference is something they value, the same cannot be said of membership of some technical committees of standards making bodies. May be, we should make such memberships of significant value. ISO and the Indian arm BSI should look into this aspect. The first ever visit of the Secretary General of ISO to Bangalore should be a landmark event in the history of standards and their renewed importance amongst IT industry professionals in India (Remarks given during the Reception to ISO (International Standards Organization) Secretary General Alan Bryden in Bangalore on December 7, 2007)