Standards? What Standards?

In a comment to my recent blog entry regarding Lockdown Networks’ departure from the marketplace, “Brian” takes issue with my comments about standards always win in the end.

While it’s clear that you need to take the time to consider which standards to support (whether de facto or de jure), it is equally clear that over any reasonable stretch of time, communications systems will consolidate around standards. Using Brian’s example, even though ISDN never caught on in residential lines in the US, it became ubiquitous in many countries around the world, and still delivers last mile PRIs in many locales in the US.

The comments I made about standards in the context of policy-based network security are vitally important for organizations recognizing their needs for that security. To adopt proprietary, closed systems at the current level of maturity of the emerging standards is unwise.

Where the standards exist, engage technology that uses them. Where they don’t, focus on those solutions from companies committed to the emerging standards or accept the probability that your approach will be relatively short-lived.

After all, standards benefit customers primarily, by providing greater choice. Companies who create products in competition with standards are broadcasting their disinterest in competing on a level playing field and their preference for using installed-base as their primary benefit.

I’ve been around long enough to remember when, “No one [got] fired for buying IBM.” The company name has changed a few times over the years, but that unfortunate idea is still around.

Isn’t it better to solve the long-term problem with effective, standards-based solutions than to play it safe with a closed, proprietary system that relies on the herd mentality?