To Select or Not? Dealing with Competing Standards in Public IT Procurement

Tineke Egyedi, Delft University of Technology

1/13/2012
(Original Publish Date: 1/3/2012)

This report addresses the problem how governments in the context of public IT‐procurement should deal with competing standards, that is, two or more functionally equivalent standards. The focus is thereby on (open) committee standards. The research questions are In the context of public IT procurement, should governments choose between standards that have the same functionality? If so, what factors should be taken into consideration? The study has been funded with research grants from the Dutch Standardisation Forum, which is involved in drawing up lists of selected ICT‐standards for governmental organisations, and the Open Forum Academy, a platform for stimulating research and discussion on open standards and interoperability. This report aims to contribute towards discussion about competing standards and help public IT procurers account for their decision(s). This report synthesizes scientific literature from different disciplines, in particular, economic, innovation and technology management studies. It interrelates a number of partly disparate themes (i.e., market impact of standards, standards wars, competing standards versions and converter solutions).