Contents Foreword .......................................................................................................................4 Open standards transform organizations in positive ways ..........25 Introduction ................................................................................................................ 5 First-mover advantages can establish a standard approach to a market or industry ........................................................... 25 Research overview ..............................................................................................8 Open standards delivered stable or increasing Standards are a critical dimension of how value over the last three years .................................................................. 26 organizations leverage information technology ....................................9 Contributions to open standards provide a Involvement with standards is widespread .......................................10 variety of hard and soft benefits .............................................................. 26 Organizations widely prefer open standards ....................................11 Increasing involvement in open standards drives strategic and tactical improvement ........................................27 The importance of open standards attributes varies by geographic region .........................................................................12 Conclusions ..............................................................................................................30 Open standards excel in their ease of development.....................14 About this study ......................................................................................................31 Open standards have eclipsed restrictive standards Demographics ......................................................................................................31 in driving value, competition, and innovation .......................................16 Methodology and open results data........................................................31 Open standards consistently provide more organizational benefits .....................................................................16 Appendix A ................................................................................................................ 35 Open standards increase competitiveness and innovation ....18 Endnotes .................................................................................................................... 55 Standards continue to factor into organizational IP strategy ...18 Acknowledgments ................................................................................................ 56 Organizations primarily derive value from About the author .................................................................................................... 56 products and services built around standards ................................21 There are a number of challenges in developing a standard .....22 Open standards persist despite opposition .......................................23