Intelligent Enterprise

Go Team!

Why industry consortia rarely go beyond cheerleading

Because generating publicity was an obvious goal, it's worthwhile to mention how excited the industry didn't get when Intel, Compaq Computer Corp., Hewlett-Packard, and various other partners announced their new e-business organization in November. The Business Internet Consortium arrived on November 29, 2000 to a total lack of fanfare.

The consortium pledges to form workgroups to address pressing questions executives face about how to implement e-business, including using XML to transform traditional business practices into e-business practices, integrating legacy and new business practices, improved exchange of information over various devices, latency and concurrency issues, and security.

These issues are all genuine challenges that need to be resolved, so why the lukewarm reception?

Maybe we're all just a bit cynical about these vendor alliances. We have a long history of seeing vendors form such groups just to win the psychological war for turf in new domains. According to Steffano Korper, VP of e-commerce solutions at Going Beyond E-Commerce Solutions LLC and coauthor of The E-Commerce Book (2nd ed., Academic Press, 2000), "If you look closer at the alliance programs, it was basically 'you refer us a customer, we'll refer you other business.'" But beyond those activities, the alliances don't leave the customer much better off.

When the choice of technology on which to standardize to operate more easily with partners is basically an arbitrary decision, the technology that people buy is the one that seems to be most in use - and that platform becomes the de facto standard. Remember the Beta videocassette format? VHS wasn't superior on technical merits, just in terms of market share - and it therefore made Beta obsolete.

Similarly, Korper believes the market will determine e-business standards. The vendors or technologies that customers demand will win critical mass and then perhaps total dominance. Whether Intel, SAP, IBM, Compaq, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, and Dell will influence that demand by "recommending standards and technologies" (another aim of the consortium) will depend on how convincing and viable their recommendations are.

Of course, with the involved vendors representing overlapping areas of competition, it may take a miracle for consensus and cogent recommendations to emerge from the consortium

-Jeanette Burriesci