Title
An economic analysis of standards competition: The example of the ISO ODF and OOXML standards
Author
Knut Blind, Berlin University of Technology, Chair of Innovation Economics, Faculty of Economics and Management
Date
9/09/2015
(Original Publish Date: 2011)
(Original Publish Date: 2011)
Abstract
The objective of this paper is to analyze economic efficiency considerations of standards competition, in order to thereby enrich the discussion about the transfer of the ECMA-376-1 (Office Open XML - OOXML) standard into the ISO/IEC 29500:2008 standard parallel to the already existing ISO/IEC 26300:2006 (Open Document Format for Office Applications - ODF) standard. Based on the available economic literature we identify parameters that need to be considered in the decision for or against a competition between competing standards. The characteristics in the specific case of competition between the ODF and the OOOXML standard clearly justify the decision for two documents standards.