The role of standards—and open standards in particular—is becoming a more frequent topic of discussion in the AV industry. Having spent much of my career in the IT world and more recently working with companies in AV, I believe this is a very important industry topic. While standards and the processes behind them can sometimes feel unfamiliar or even uncomfortable, they are essential tools for one important reason: the industry must work together to move forward.
For those who have not participated in standards development, the process can appear messy or opaque. I personally remember early in my career, working on product teams and viewing standards as outside forces that negatively affected schedules, introducing product constraints for reasons that weren’t immediately clear — not to mention working with our competition! They sometimes seemed disconnected from the realities of shipping products. Over time as I became more directly involved in participating in standards efforts, I gained an appreciation of their significance as well as understanding that the sometimes chaotic nature comes with the task of an industry creating together.
There are many types of standards, and my personal experience is primarily with open technical standards, which form the basis for the perspective shared here. It is also important to state that every technology ecosystem includes a mix of proprietary solutions and open industry standardized components and layers.
What is essential to understand is the role that open standards can play in the industry. The most important function is facilitating a structured way for companies to work together on shared problems. Standards orgs create processes that help set aside competitive and intellectual property concerns in pursuit of a common goal. Successful standards efforts typically begin with agreement on a real market problem by multiple companies which then committing resources to solve that problem collaboratively, outside of their day-to-day competitive relationships.
Occasionally I hear concerns that standards operate outside normal market pressures or that they are underfunded and disconnected from commercial reality. In my experience, the opposite is true. Long-term success only occurs when there is a genuine market need and when multiple companies collectively drive development through standards bodies. This type of “coopetition’ where companies jointly fund and benefit from shared infrastructure as opposed to a single company is more complex than a single-vendor approach, but it enables greater scale and value chain confidence. The result is an ecosystem where many companies can innovate and compete, allowing market demand to be met without being constrained by the capacity or priorities of a single supplier. Conversely, when there is agreed need, standards simply do not gain adoption, and development naturally slows or stops.
The related issue of interoperability is important to address. A multi-vendor ecosystem offers choice, but without a single company testing everything, how can users be confident the overall system will work? Multi-vendor interoperability in a sufficiently, complex standard or set of standards is not a given even when the standards are very well written. This is where industry groups, composed of cooperating companies, step in to define interoperability expectations and manage them through guidance, testing, and certification programs. Although this may take longer initially than a single-vendor solution, over time it produces a more robust and resilient ecosystem – the importance of which has been seen during recent supply chain disruptions.
An example of this type of industry group is Wi-Fi Alliance. I am old enough to remember when Wi-Fi products from different vendors frequently failed to work together, despite being based on well written IEEE 802.11 standards. Over time, the Wi-Fi Alliance created a forum for companies to align on interoperability goals and established rigorous testing and certification programs. This type of group can be utilized more in AV and is not just for purely technical contributors – it is best driven by the business and user needs.
Another argument heard is that AV is somehow fundamentally different from IT, and that the benefits of standards-driven collaboration does not apply. Having worked extensively in both industries, I believe this is not only be false but potentially limiting to the industry. IT did not embrace standards because of unique virtues or higher intentions; it did so in response to market pressure from increasing interdependence across the solutions. Note that the IT industry was much smaller than it is today. Standards allowed companies to focus limited resources on meaningful differentiation built on top of shared standards. This is how standards ultimately fuel market and technology innovation.
As AV systems continue to evolve—becoming more networked, cloud-connected, software-defined and containerized—the same dynamics apply. AV companies and the broader community, including integrators and consultants, can all benefit from the same playbook. The increasing overlap with IT infrastructure, which is inherently standards-based, makes this even more important. The driving force is the same: the need for the industry to work together more effectively, gaining a voice in technologies that are used in AV/IT products and systems
Standards, and the organizations that support them, are one of the most powerful tools we have to enable that cooperation. As we start the new year at ISE and other industry forums, I let’s continue the discussion. I personally look forward to it.
Greg Schlechter
Greg Schlechteris a technologist with more than 25 years of experience across IT, embedded computing, and networking. He began his career at Intel working on Pentium-based PC systems and has since contributed to numerous technology initiatives as computing evolved from personal computers to distributed and edge-based systems. Most recently, he led time-coordinated computing and time-sensitive networking initiatives at the intersection of compute, industrial automation and professional AV. Since retiring from Intel, Greg consults and advises companies and organizations on technology strategy, architecture, and ecosystem development.
