The Role of Consortia Standards in Federal Government Procurements in the Information Technology Sector: Towards a Re-definition of a Voluntary Consensus Standards Organization

Carl Cargill, Director of Standardization, Sun Microsystems

1/01/2005
(Original Publish Date: 2000)

Standardization is an essential and growing element in the success of the Information Technology industry. The success of the Internet, the World Wide Web, e-Commerce, and the wireless revolution are al predicated upon successful standardization. A majority of the standards that drive these evolving areas of technology are created in consortia. This paper provides definitions of both "Information Process and "consortia" to limit the scope of this change to a precise set of problems. The paper also describes the manner in which the laws that govern procurement for Federal agencies with the Information Technology sector are written and interpreted in a fashion such that consortia specifications are excluded from consideration. The paper also proposes an amendment to the "National Technology Transfer and Advancement Act of 1995, to redefine "Voluntary consensus standards bodies" within the IT sector in order to allow agencies to select from a more complete and realistic set of offerings than can be offered under the current law.