2013年7月10日
By 1月时特约编辑
专题文章

Commentary: Standards Are Meaningless (Until They Mean Something)

Two early experiences shaped my view on standards and industry coalitions. 自从我这样公开了 on WebM, HTML5, and DASH, I thought I would share them.

第一次经历是在20世纪90年代中期. I was running a small company that sold PC fax boards that allowed computers to send faxes to fax machines, which was a desired functionality in those fax-crazy days. My company sold several cards under the JT Fax brand, and we were the market leader (in a very small market).

Soon, Intel released a competitor, but it didn’t just launch a product. 英特尔宣布了一项新规范, called the Communicating Application Specification (CAS), that allowed word processors and other applications to communicate seamlessly with its product. 如果我没记错的话, 17家公司(包括WordPerfect), the dominant word processor at the time) joined Intel on the podium that day -- and in associated press releases. 这让人想起 ... 说, WebM, where Google lined up multiple companies promising products of which many (if not most) were never delivered.

Meanwhile, Intel overpriced its product, and it sold poorly. The highly touted, game-changing spec never went anywhere and died a quiet death several years later. 这一课? 行业联盟，如WebM, 或者HTML5或DASH, are meaningless until they actually mean something. This usually occurs several years after the announcement, if it happens at all.

第二次经历发生在几年后. 我是迭代系统公司的营销副总裁., which sold fractal-based still image and video compression. 我们的巅峰出现在(据说)Mr. Bill Gates himself walked into our booth at COMDEX, 一天清晨, when only a very green marketing assistant was there setting up. He spoke with her briefly, and discussions ensued. 几个月后, Microsoft Encarta shipped with fractal still image compression decoding all those lovely images.

I left Iterated about a year later and set up Doceo. My first product was a CD-ROM that benchmarked the CD-ROM video compression products, 包括Cinepak, Indeo, 和一个时髦的, 性能不佳的MPEG-1编解码器. On the horribly underpowered computers of the day, Indeo and Cinepak offered 30 fps 320x240 playback, MPEG-1大约是8 - 10fps.

Three companies ended up offering MPEG-1 software decoders, and all got bought for between $40 million and $60 million, primarily so their MPEG-1 decode technology could get integrated into CPUs and graphics chips. 随着计算机变得越来越快, JPEG变得足够快了, 既然你无法抗拒价格(免费), 分形静态图像压缩消失了. Iterated’s video technology flared briefly as a plug-in for RealVideo, 但它最终也死了. 这一课 is that in the video compression space, standards usually win. This is why I’m absolutely certain HEVC, and not WebM or VP9, will supplant H.264. 我只是觉得这不会很快发生.

那么HTML5和DASH呢? 忽略新闻稿和宣传. 我一直在做产品, I know how hard it is to actually finish a product, and that’s incrementally more challenging when you have multiple independent companies and ecosystems involved, 就像你使用HTML5和DASH一样. 我记得Geoffrey A. Moore’s foundational book Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling Disruptive Products to Mainstream Customers. The most apt summary I’ve seen is from Norway’s Alper Celik, 谁说, “While the early adopter would purchase a product that could deliver an 80% solution (seeing it as only 20% more to go), the pragmatist takes the position of buying when it is 100% complete (a ‘whole product’ as Moore puts it) and can be referenced as working within their industry.”

I’m a pragmatist and prefer to wait for the whole product. In the case of DASH and HTML5, they may come; in fact, they probably will come. But they’re certainly not here yet -- or anywhere close.

This article appears in the June/July 2013 issue of 流媒体杂志 题目是“通往标准之路”."