NEW DELHI, INDIA: The demand for standardisation across the IT industry has grown as the range of products and solutions expands, and Asia’s burgeoning market is no exception.

The region’s big players are leading the way in efforts to adapt or create technology standards. Interoperability is facilitated through product design, industry collaboration, cross-licensing and the use of translators, among other moves.

Huawei, Lenovo, Samsung and Panasonic, for example, have joined the Digital Living Network Alliance, a cross-industry grouping of 220 companies from 20 countries that aims to provide a network of interoperable consumer electronics, computing, mobile and other devices.

The consortium has collaborated to produce a common set of industry design guidelines for manufacturers. These provide technical specifications and reference software for designers, but remain flexible enough to adapt to new technology and standards as they become available.

The above example was highlighted in the Asia Innovation Policy Study conducted by the INSEAD international business school and sponsored by the Business Software Alliance. The study notes that the region’s companies are also spearheading such standard-setting initiatives, sometimes allying themselves with research universities to promote de facto standards.

In China, the leading home connectivity solutions provider, Tsinghua Tongfang, co-founded a home network standard industrialization alliance called iTopHome in 2004.

In addition, it collaborated with Tsinghua University to secure patents in broadband communications, network security, home automation, and digital media.

Tsinghua Tongfang’s main home connectivity application is e-Home, an intelligent home system that integrates automation control, home security, digital multimedia, wireless communications, and home utility functions, built on a platform that runs under Windows as well as Linux.

As Asian technology vendors and entrepreneurs grapple with the challenge of standardization, however, they must also deal with the fact that it can be a shifting target – better products can and often do come along, displacing even previously dominant ones and changing the needs of stakeholders and markets.

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