Re:Hard Startups
by marcosdumay on Wednesday February 26, 2020 @06:43PM
(#22428768)
> It helps pretend government research and alliances always produce the best outcomes.
Well, at least on this case government research did produce the best outcome. By far. So far no comparison even makes sense, and people don't even remember there were other attempts.
So you mean, when something fit their narrative (here: government research is better) people forget about other attempts? And counter examples in similar domains (here: wifi) are also dismissed?
Color me impressed!
Wifi is not a counter example. The underlying technology was invented at CSIRO, the Australian government research agency.
Something must be invented somewhere. All I say is government research is not necessarily "better". It just is.
I don't know if it's better or worse, but since governments have a much longer time horizon they can fund more basic research.
You're talking about the product of standards committees there, not startups. Standards committees are sort of "We're doing this so no one company owns/controls this basic tech, so we can all build new and interoperable products with the basic tech and make money!"
The beauty of standards is that there are so many to chose from! So it's not very different from startups.
Eventually, somethings dominate whether it comes from a standard body or is "branded" as a standard ex-post.
Your example may be a bit too old. Even novell netware, token ring etc won't ring a bell to many people.
Try a simpler one instead: Do you guys remember about the various wireless standards before Wifi?
The Orinocos and the Intel 2011 PCMCIA were IIRC among the first ones of the 802.11b - quickly eclipsing everything else.
Also, what about DECT from about the same period? Some companies (mostly in Europe) tried to make an equivalent of Wifi, but using DECT modems. Some devices even made it to the market!