DVD's Death Sentence? - Technology Information

Computer Technology Review, April, 2000 by Mark Ferelli

If I had a grain of sand for each time someone has asked me whether a given technology is going to be a standard, I would own my own personal beach. Standards come in many flavors: a committee-based standard that sports an ANSI or ISO or ECMA designation, a de facto standard dictated by buying patterns in the marketplace, sole source standards that merely mean that a user is locked to a vendor for better or for worse.

No one in his or her sober senses denies the importance of standardization. Software and drivers are easier to write for standardized hardware. Standard operating systems can have applications written for them, helping to popularize the OS. The blessing of the International Standards Organization (ISO) or its European counterpart ECMA is a serious selling point in reassuring end users that they are not trapped in a vendor lock-in situation.

One of the strengths of the mass storage industry generally is its endless ability to innovate, to defy limits, and to move forward in pursuit of Moore's Law. This year, 2000, promises to be a vital year for new introductions. One of the weaknesses of the mass storage industry is a stubborn refusal to learn from history. Nowhere is this hardheaded defiance of reality more clearly demonstrated than in the standards efforts for optical technology, especially DVD. By all rational measures, DVD should have supplanted CD as the medium of choice some time back. But it isn't happening.

The standards committees get blamed unfairly for the actions of their individual members. The committee members are more often representing their company's1 political agendas in a venue that is not supposed to be a political process. Sometimes, standards committees work very well. The consortium that developed SCSI represents a great example, but some organizations do not.

Optical technology has such a bright future, but the players are intentionally putting up time-consuming obstacles and it could be argued that the time consumption will put DVD to the painful death of obsolescence. There were originally two factions in DVD; there are three as of about two months ago. Why all the competing formats? Technology R&D makes up a small part; jealousy makes up a much larger part. Jockeying for advantage is the greatest part, but the acrimonious competition will spark the technology's demise because the technology is not holding still.

Holographic storage is coming and the benefits of holographic storage, founded in multiple layer recording, will be almost self-evident. I have seen the demonstrations. The experts at AIIM and the government/military/aerospace sector are keeping a close but enthusiastic eye on holo developments. There will be an excited buying audience in this important sector and, still, the DVD factions argue [ldots] while Rome bums. DVD may have a fixed life. Maybe another, more modem history lesson will send a message to the DVD factions [ldots] a lesson from outside the storage industry.

Late last year, Sun Microsystems withdrew from its self-initiated standards application for Java. ISO rejected the petition because Sun controlled Java with too tight a hand. Sun next approached the European consortium, ECMA. ECMA also rejected the petition, even with their reputation for being a softer sell than ANSI or ISO.

Some observers suggest that Sun knew before it began the process that no specification owned by one company could garner standards approval--even Microsoft has not been able to pull that rabbit out of a hat. Was their purpose to build a case for good faith effort? Who can say?

What we can say is that splintering the DVD market provides advantage for nobody. Each faction will control its format. The competing formats are unlikely to build new consumers, but create considerable hesitation in buying DVD among a finite number of professional users. No one wants to be stuck with a discontinued technology. This is, of course, the reason that DVD has not eclipsed CD. Based on a standard, ISO 9660, compatibility has been a watchword [ldots] and OEMs are not hesitant to put CDs into their desktops or libraries. It never changes: fail to learn from history and you will certainly relive it.