February 13, 2003

The INCITS Executive Board submits the following contribution for consideration at the AIC February 26, 2003 discussion on agenda item 4.9 ­ JTC 1 E-Commerce Market Trial Results and Possible Action.

INCITS serves as the US TAG to JTC 1 and was instrumental in the initiation of the E-Commerce Market Trial. The US TAG has actively been engaged in the planning and coordinating efforts of the trial, contributing two of the three JTC 1 Representatives to the ISO ad hoc. While the means test for success was never documented by the ad hoc, there appeared to be two agreed upon objectives: 1) that information technology standards be "freely available" for ubiquitous dissemination and rapid implementation and 2) that the trial be revenue neutral.

INCITS is therefore extremely disappointed to see the January 7, 2003 ANSI response to the ad hoc's request for trial results. In particular, the summation:

"With the exception of one standard (ISO/IEC TR 11172-5:1998-Programming C) that more than doubled in revenue and sold over 10 time the units, the rest of the standards were not impacted by the price changes. . . From our perspective, we see this trial as a failure."

It is very unfortunate that such a response was shared internationally without input considered from all of the stakeholders. The INCITS Executive Board draws very different conclusions from the trial and asks the AIC to consider the following.

a) For those products that were available for both 2001 and 2002, 26 standards maintained or increased their volume and the mean increase in revenue for these standards was 180%. 8 standards decreased in volume and the mean decrease in revenue was 61%. As a total, the number of standards disseminated almost doubled. The INCITS Executive Board is extremely pleased with the high volume of sales on new standards and believes this more than demonstrates an opportunity to make standards more ubiquitous.

b) On this subset of Information Technology standards, ANSI incurred a loss of $4171. While this 13.5% decrease in revenue can be attributed to any number of external forces, INCITS EB finds this figure to be within manageable limits and not, in and of itself, significant enough to rule the trial a "failure".

c) In general, Information Technology standards are in high demand upon initial publication and the demand declines dramatically as the standards age.

d) New products do increase sales. The most direct impact to the sales revenue of ANSI will occur if there are no new standards submitted for publication.

It is our hope that these points will be taken into consideration when preparing the ANSI response to ISO Council.

The INCITS EB is pleased to be a catalyst in promoting ANSI standards. Working in collaboration with ANSI, we look forward to determining the next steps required to further the two objectives of the trial. INCITS offers to provide direct contact with AIC should further discussions take place on this matter.