Can we make more money with or without standards? Once upon a time, the prevailing wisdom was that proprietary systems were more profitable, and that standards killed profits. In that era, virtually all networking systems were proprietary. Once a customer committed to a vendor named X, that customer could only use products that were part of XNA (X's Network Architecture). This was profitable, we believed, because only X sold XNA products, and so X could demand total loyalty and high prices from its customers because they had no one else to turn to, short of totally changing their architecture. More recently, it seems clear that standards promote sales and profits, because it means that customers are more comfortable. They are more comfortable because they can buy from any vendor and confidently expect that the product will work with products of other vendors. I suggest that distributors are in a unique position to monitor the need for standards. If you are a distributor, you hear about the glitches in your products if you take the time to listen to your customers. And glitches are a major source of standards. But can you detect the need for the standard? Let me offer a tiny example from my own experience. I have a fax switch in my office. When a voice call comes in, it makes my phone ring, and when a fax call comes in, it switches it over to the fax machine. It saves me a second line, and that saves lots of money. When I decided to install caller ID in my office, the problem started: the caller ID never would work! I fiddled and fussed with the caller id and where it was in relation to all my other phone gadgets: the answering machine, the fax, and the fax switch. I checked the settings on them all, and tried all the combinations I could think of, but the only message that appeared was "NO DATA SENT". Finally I called the phone company and they checked and assured me that the line was translated and that the switch was sending data down the line. Then I called the caller id manufacturer, and they did their checks, and assured me that the unit was working fine. Frustrated, I left it alone and got busy on other things for a few months. One day I was looking at my phone bill, and noticed that I was still paying $7.95 every month for that caller id service that didn't work. Investigating further, I called the fax switch manufacturer, who told me why it wasn't working. It seems that the fax switch answers on the first ring and the phone company switch sends the caller id data between the first and second rings. Simple enough: the caller id unit never gets the data because the fax switch answers before it can be sent. Once the problem was defined, the solution was simple, too. The fax switch was upgraded (for $75) to answer AFTER THE SECOND RING. Now the caller id unit gets the data, and everyone is happy. What's the standards issue? Each add-on device has a well- defined function with respect to the common telephone system, but it's increasingly difficult to make them co-exist in a productive, predictable way. No one is in charge of designing the collage of gadgets we use with our telephone systems, and no one can troubleshoot their combinations except the consumer and their advocate. In my example, I mentioned the fax switch to both the phone company and to the caller id company, but neither had any clue that it caused the failure. In fact, after we figured it out, I called the phone company back to try to explain what happened so they could beware of the same glitch with other customers. I couldn't reach anyone that understood that it was a problem at all! Maybe we should create standards for telephone gadgets. Maybe this is a niche that electrical distributors might be able to fill. After all, they sell such gadgets from many vendors, and they could render a great public service by demanding some compatibility. This specific caller ID/fax switch interaction looks like a very small market, and probably isn't worth pursuing. But there are many problems like it in the voice and data comm industry, and pursuing convenient solutions to these problems for your customers may be another profitable sideline. Author Note: Carl Shinn is the principal at compuTutor Consulting, a Denver-based computer and networking firm founded in 1987. He was previously a Systems Analyst at Bell Laboratories and an AT&T District Engineering Manager. Carl has consulted for both end-user and vendor organizations concentrating on the design and evaluation of network troubleshooting tools. He also lectures extensively across North America and Europe on a wide range of data communication and networking topics including network protocols, LAN and internetwork troubleshooting, Internet marketing, and client/server computing. Carl has spoken at several industry conferences including the ICA Expo and the Midwest Communications Conference as well as to various computer user groups. Carl holds a Doctorate in Electrical Engineering and an MBA.