Standard

A standard is a set of specifications for hardware or software, agreed upon by academic and industry contributors. A standard makes it possible for many manufacturers to create products that are compatible with one another. Standards may be set by official organizations, or unofficially set, established by common use. Common examples of standards include standards from the following institutes and organizations.

• AFIPS (American Federation of Information Processing Societies)
• ANSI (American National Standards Institute)
• IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission)
• IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers)
• INCITS (International Committee for Information Technology Standards)
• NSSN (National Standards Systems Network)
• ITU (International Telecommunication Union)
• VESA (Video Electronics Standard Association)

Advantages of standards

Standards are advantageous for both the end user and the manufactures of computer products in that they prevent confusion between the two parties. One example of how a standard came into use was with 56k modems and the X2 and Flex technologies. As a result, Internet service providers had a difficult choice to make. They could purchase both brands of modems, and a separate access line to use with each brand. Or, they could support only one technology and lose business. The solution came in the form of V.90, which combined two standards into one.

Ad hoc standard, Business terms, Classification, Compliant, De facto standard, El Torito, Form factor, Interoperability, ITU, Normalization, Style guide, Uniformity