Are mobile "bar codes" a new standards battle?

On a recent canal tour in Amsterdam, I noticed a QR code emblazoned on the side of a canal. At the recent Google I/O meeting, participants were given T-shirts with these codes on them. The Pittsburgh Post Gazette also prints a QR code on the front page.

If you haven't interacted with these, the basic idea is that you can, through your mobile phone, use the code to access information. You need a code scanner/interpreter on your phone, which takes images from the phones camera, decodes them, and then passes the decoded information to your phone's web browser, which then calls up the web site via your wireless Internet connection.

Microsoft has developed a denser code which it is trying to popularize. This code uses colors and other shapes as opposed to the black-and-white squares used by QR codes. It is not hard to conclude that this Microsoft code is in many ways superior since it can encode more information for a given surface area.

On the canal tour, I started to wonder whether this is the latest incarnation of the standards battles, the most famous of which is BetaMax vs. VHS, and the most recent of which is HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray. In this case, QR codes seem to have the early lead because of their popularity in Japan, because they can be printed in black and white, and because they have (implicitly) Google's backing. Microsoft, for its part, has given away the required mobile phone software but must now convince publishers and content providers to use its code.

Is it a standards battle? Is it one that is already over or will Microsoft's technology win the day in the end?

Google, Microsoft and the smart grid

I have been wondering why Google and Microsoft have been working hard to enter the "smart grid" market. This article over at Seeking Alpha provides the best explanation I have seen so far:

Google, Microsoft (MSFT), Intel (INTC) and others have all launched efforts to control how consumers and businesses monitor and analyze their energy consumption. Why the rush? Neither Google nor Microsoft will charge consumers for PowerMeter or Hohm. However, advertisers will likely pay both companies for the opportunity to hawk energy efficiency services and other energy-related products to consumers who use their respective consoles. Both companies will also mine the data (after it has been scrubbed to protect privacy) to utilities. Don't worry about a loss of dignity or privacy: you'll get a coupon for ten percent off on a new set of storm windows.

Microsoft study places value on white spaces

I found this article interesting.

The study, by consultant Richard Thanki of Perspective Associates, suggests that by augmenting current unlicensed wireless networks, such as Wi-Fi hot spots, the white spaces could generate between $3.9 billion and $7.3 billion in value annually over 15 years. That would be the result of increased use of consumer electronics and other factors, according to the study.

In his study, Thanki writes that white spaces spectrum offers a broader range than a typical Wi-Fi connection. A single Wi-Fi access point enhanced by the white spaces could "fully cover a large building and the neighboring grounds and areas," he writes.

In addition, use of the white spaces could lower the cost of providing Internet access in rural areas, Thanki writes.

While chips used to power white spaces devices would initially cost roughly $10 more than existing technologies in 2012, the difference should steadily decline at a rate of about 30% annually from that point on, according to the study.

I would love to get a copy of that study ...



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Availability in current cloud computing services

This article reports research performed in Australia looking at the availability of cloud services provided by Amazon, Google and Microsoft. Here is how the experiment was set up:

The team of researchers, led by the University of New South Wales (UNSW) and in collaboration with researchers at NICTA (National ICT Australia) and the Smart Services Cooperative Research Centre (CRC), have spent seven months stress testing Amazon's EC2, Google's AppLogic and Microsoft's Azure cloud computing services.

The analysis simulated 2000 concurrent users connecting to services from each of the three providers, with researchers measuring response times and other performance metrics.

Here are some things they found:

Response times on the service also varied by a factor of twenty depending on the time of day the services were accessed, she said.

The response times collated in Sydney were tested against measurement instruments loaded onto the cloud platform to isolate whether delays were attributable to the service itself or the latency involved with accessing US-based data centres from Australia.

and

None of the platforms have the kind of monitoring required to have a reasonable conversation about performance," she said. "They provide some level of monitoring, but what little there is caters for developers, not business users. And while Amazon provides a dashboard of how much it is costing you so far, for example, there is nothing in terms of forecasts about what it will cost you in the future.

More on standards rivalry

In this previous post, I described an emergent standards rivalry. Shortly after I posted it, this item appeared over at GigaOm.

Standards rivalry in online multimedia platforms

If you were one of the many viewers who watched video clips of the Beijing Olympics online, you may recall that you were asked to download the "Silverlight" software to view it. While the financial side of the Microsoft/NBC transaction to use Silverlight instead of Adobe's Flash player is unknown (at least to me), the motivation for this is clear: to build up an installed base of Sliverlight software. This article from Reuters (via Yahoo News) does a good job of describing this. Quoting the article:

Microsoft's Silverlight technology and rival Adobe's Flash format are currently locked in a race over who delivers the world's online video, but the ultimate prize may be who powers the next generation of Web software.

Using Silverlight, the NBC site offers a glimpse of what is possible with future Web applications because viewers are able to watch up to four videos at once or follow the action with an online commentary that runs alongside the video.

By building up Silverlight's user base, the world's largest software maker is looking to win over developers who see Web platforms such as Silverlight and Flash as a new way to deliver powerful Web-linked programs incorporating rich graphics.

Microsoft, which said nearly half the visitors to NBC's site did not have Silverlight, plans to expand its reach to close the gap on Flash, which is already running on most of the world's Web-connected computers and powers over 80 percent of the video on the Internet.

Taking advantage of Flash, Silverlight and other more simple Web-coding technologies such as AJAX, a new breed of interactive Web software -- known as rich Internet applications (RIAs) -- has emerged.

Like other Web applications, RIAs are cheaper to deploy and maintain than traditional software, but they differ from more simple Web programs by employing rich graphics, running faster and creating a seamless experience that does not require the application to constantly reload or refresh.

Gartner analyst Ray Valdes said 90 percent of the top global 1,000 companies have yet to deploy any sort of RIA, while 90 percent of the top 100 consumer Web sites have already done so using the nonproprietary and more simple AJAX format.

That opportunity has Microsoft eyeing current leader Adobe for business that extends beyond Silverlight and into the sale of design tools along with server and database software to enable these new applications.

Microsoft is approaching Silverlight from the opposite direction. It plans to take advantage of its legions of outside developers experienced in writing for its ubiquitous Windows operating system.

The next version of Silverlight, being tested now and due later this year, will support Microsoft's .NET framework -- tools used by developers to create desktop applications that work on Windows.

Walled gardens and innovation

The topic of "walled gardens" comes up here (and elsewhere) from time to time (see this, for example).  So, you might find this article, by economist Tom Hazlett interesting.  As his article points out, there is a tension here ... on the one hand, people seem to like their "walled gardens" -- that is, closed systems where the user experience is controlled.  Recent examples include the iPod-iTunes, AT&T-iPhone, or the Microsoft Zune "gardens". 

On the other, these systems often lead to systems that can be viewed as restrictive and/or anticompetitive.  The recent EU antitrust actions and the interest in structural separation and "wireless Carterfone" are also examples of this.

I don't agree completely with Hazlett.  I think that the pursuit of walled gardens promote innovation.  By analogy, consider the competitive era in US local telephony (1894-1920). A winner-take-all battle drove network investment and innovation.  When the battle was over, innovation lagged.

Microsoft and the EU

As has been widely reported (see this), Microsoft's appeal of the European Commission's decision failed. This story in BusinessWeek and this one in the NY Times begin to contemplate some of the longer term consequences of this decsion beyond Microsoft.

Some of the other cases mentioned involve Qualcomm and other firms that have technologies that are either de facto or de jure standards. If the markets that these firms compete in benefit from standards, should the firms whose technology has been adopted by the marketplace be subject to government scrutiny or intervention? Should a de jure process exempt firms from this?

More broadly, how much should the government manage competition? Do consumers benefit from this kind of intervention? What should be the standard for determining "successful" government intervention?

Update (2007-09-18): Here is an analysis from TLF.

Update (2007-09-21): I found this item to be a worthwhile read. Do you agree or disagree?

Update (2007-09-25): This article suggests that smaller companies may begin "venue shopping" in the EU in order to gain favorable rulings. Is this a good development?

Update (2007-09-26): This item is critical of the EU ruling, and frames the Antitrust fine as a tariff that bypasses the WTO. Do you think this has merit?

More on standards committees

This item in the NY Times caught my eye today (it was a followup to this earlier one). It reminded me of the early days of digital communications, when AT&T came into the ITU with the T1 transmission system to have it standardized. It too failed ... and it led to a world of two standards -- the North American digital hierarchy and the ITU digital hierarchy.

It points to the reality that standards committees are made up of people, usually who work in organizations that compete in the marketplace. So, standards committee deliberations are extensions of marketplace competition. These discussions and decisions are also deeply influenced by all of our human traits and foibles that aren't always logical or rational.

So, much as Microsoft clearly wanted its Office Open XML standardized, do you think that they have the market clout to have its proprietary "standard" prevail? Are we going to have a world of two "standards"? If we do, is anyone going to care about the non-Microsoft one? Can Microsoft go another rout, such as the formation of an Open Office XML consortium to guide this standard, effectively bypassing ISO?