The objective of this paper is to analyze economic efficiency considerations of standards competition, in order to thereby enrich the discussion about the transfer of the ECMA-376-1 (Office Open XML OOXML) standard into the ISO/IEC 29500:2008 standard parallel to the already existing ISO/IEC 26300:2006 (Open Document Format for Office Applications ODF) standard. Based on the available economic literature we identify parameters that need to be considered in the decision for or against a competition between competing standards. The characteristics in the specific case of competition between the ODF and the OOOXML standard clearly justify the decision for two documents standards.

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doi.org/10.1016/j.telpol.2011.02.007, hdl.handle.net/1765/30688
ERIM Article Series (EAS)
Telecommunications Policy
Erasmus Research Institute of Management

Blind, K. (2011). An economic analysis of standards competition: The example of the ISO ODF and OOXML standards. Telecommunications Policy, 35(4), 373–381. doi:10.1016/j.telpol.2011.02.007