sunflash-Distributed to mailing list sun/NC/north-carolina sunflash-Send requests, problems to owner-sunflash@suntri.east.sun.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Florida SunFlash Sun Top Company in Standards, According to ANSI SunFLASH Vol 60 #5 December 1993 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 60.05 Sun Top Company in Standards, According to ANSI A study sponsored by ANSI of more than 100 major U.S. companies has found Sun to be one of America's top four industrial corporations that uses standardization for strategic advantage. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- This is the first SunFlash since Dec 6th. I have been on vacation at Walt Disney World, Orlando, Florida. A little known Florida law requires that all Florida residents with two or more small children help fill up the Disney theme parks when there are not enough out-of-state tourists to fill them :-) ! You can expect a bunch of articles over the next couple of weeks as I play catch-up. If you have sent me a request to post a third-party article or update the mailing list, it may take a week or two for me to get to it. Thanks for your patience. -johnj ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. -- December 7, 1993 -- An on-going study contracted by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) has revealed that Sun Microsystems, Inc., is one of America's top four industrial corporations that uses standardization for strategic advantage. Conducted by Verity Consulting of Los Angeles, the study examined more than 100 major U.S. companies. Sun was the only computer company in the top ranking. "Unlike most companies, where standards are viewed in engineering terms, Sun Microsystems is at the leading edge of a small, but growing cadre of companies who recognize and take advantage of standards to promote the company's business interests," wrote Verity Consulting. "In the fast-paced industry of computer workstations, Sun can trace a number of successful product lines to their savvy use of standards." Indeed, Sun built its business on computing standards like UNIX and Ethernet from the outset and has continued to use and evangelize standards. The company has had a major hand in the creation of industry standards such as XPG 3 , XPG 4, various versions of POSIX 1003, and the "Unified UNIX" called Spec 1170 that is standardizing UNIX APIs. The lack of standards has been widely identified as a key problem in American business in many reports from noted research organizations. These reports conclude that promoting and using standards on a global basis could be a potent strategic tool for U.S. companies. "Standards promote competition and innovation, broaden software developer access to the market, protect user investments and provide freedom of choice," stated Alex Osadzinski, vice president of markets and product strategy at Sun Microsystems Computer Corp. "We have built our business on the belief that we can use standards for our customers' advantage and for our own competitive advantage. Standards are important to customers because they allow interoperability -- systems and software from multiple sources can work together," he continued. Among examples of standard Sun interfaces whose specifications have been developed by key industry consortia or standards bodies are SBus, a specification developed by Sun and converted to an IEEE standard and the X/Open Portability Guide specifications from X/Open Company Limited. Sun uses these standards as starting points and provides its own implementations to gain competitive strength. Another Sun-developed specification, OpenBoot(TM), is in the process of becoming an IEEE standard. In the federal market, the government has made a commitment to open systems, thus adherence to standards has become critically important, explained John Leahy, group manager for Sun Microsystems Federal, Inc. "All government procurement requests list the standards the vendors must follow and if the company does not have those standards, their products will not be considered," he said. ANSI coordinates numerous committees to develop standards for all areas of industry. In this benchmarking study, ANSI is trying to identify companies that use standards for strategic purposes rather than simply as an engineering tool. Verity Consulting was chosen by ANSI's Company Member Council Executive Committee because of its experience in benchmarking a firm's ability to use strategic planning and marketing for competitive advantage. Sun Microsystems, Inc., is the world's leading vendor of open client-server computing solutions. An integrated portfolio of businesses, Sun is headquartered in Mountain View, California. ### Sun Microsystems, Sun, OpenBoot, and the Sun logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. All SPARC trademarks, including the SCD Compliant logo, are trademarks or registered trademarks of SPARC International, Inc. Products bearing SPARC trademarks are based on architecture developed by Sun Microsystems, Inc. All other products are referred to herein by the trademarks as designated by the companies who market those products. ********************************************************************** For information about SunFlash send mail to info-sunflash@Sun.COM. Subscription requests should be sent to sunflash-request@Sun.COM. Archives are on draco.nova.edu, ftp.uu.net, sunsite.unc.edu, src.doc.ic.ac.uk and ftp.adelaide.edu.au For last month's digest, send email to flashadm@sun.com with a Subject line of 59.00 For Gopher and WAIS access: sunsite.unc.edu. (Login as 'gopher' for a simple gopher client, 'swais' for a simple WAIS client (over 500 databases). All prices, availability, and other statements relating to Sun or third party products are valid in the U.S. only. Please contact your local Sales Representative for details of pricing and product availability in your region. Descriptions of, or references to products or publications within SunFlash does not imply an endorsement of that product or publication by Sun Microsystems. Send brief articles (e.g. third party announcements) and include contact information (non-800#, fax #, email, etc) to: John McLaughlin, SunFlash editor, flash@Sun.COM. +1 305 351 4909