For decades, companies have resisted the need to adopt standards. Microsoft Office 2007 is the first version of MS Office which fully documents its file format. Prior to this version, software applications relied on their interpretation of MS Office format to build an import filter. For example, you could not import Word documents in OpenOffice without losing a part of the content or spending plenty of time in reformatting the document. Similarly, Adobe Photoshop does not retain layers when exporting to other formats except PSD, for a graphic designer that is a critical loss of information. If the content is locked in a proprietary file format, it is unlikely that a customer will move to a competing application. High cost of migration means customer continues to pay for maintenance and operating system linked upgrades.
DITA is another standard which has become widely accepted (thanks to OASIS and strong support from IBM). Translation and consistency requirements make it essential for the content to be structured and componentized. Moving the content to smaller topic based chunks stored in XML format makes it easier for companies to author, manage and publish content in a distributed and collaborative team.
Similar is the case with content management systems. While WebDAV is a well supported standard, it is very low level standard and a large amount of logic needs to be wrapped around this standard for achieving a good functional integration. However, a new standard is in the works and we may see more competitive intensity increase once the standard gets acceptance.
Standards reduce the cost of switching software from one vendor to another. This opens up opportunities for smaller and new companies to compete on features and functions. If you are buying software, insist on standards compliance even if the vendor is a large company. Your successors will thank you for making that decision!!
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