In our daily life, many different techniques are applied on countless electronic products to render its function. If those techniques are self-developed by each individual company, it is highly possible to limit the industry's evolvement and the technique's further advancement. To avoid the hydra-headed situation, the concept of“technology standardization”is thus given birth to universalize popular technologies in the market. The purpose of technology standardization is to formulate a usable technology to become the applicable standard for all vendors to adopt and use. Therefore it can not only make a technology to be widely adopted, but also to avoid industrial monopoly on particular technology to pursue one's own commercial interests.
To successfully standardize each technology, a third-party and non-profit organization is required to play the key role of promotion and advocacy This kind of neutral association is responsible for many aspects such as internal operating, technical specification defining and certification programs setting. Thanks to the effort from these standard associations, there are numerous technologies have become popular industry standards today. For example, consumer electronic products like mobile phone & cameras and home appliances like televisions & DVD players has adopted current hot technology standard including USB, Bluetooth and HDMI.
As a leading third-party authorized test lab, Allion keeps working closely with standard organizations/associations to jointly promote the technical standards and help manufacturers obtain the association's latest technical updates. In addition to many popular industry standards like we mentioned above, TransferJet is another new technology that we'd like to introduce. TransferJet is developed by SONY and other well-known vendors and the organization behind it is called the“TransferJet Consortium”. It is a stand-alone unit to promote this innovative transmission technology.
To help you understand what should be focus on when it comes to technology standardization, below we take TransferJet as an example to discuss about some key points:
1. Association's strong support for long-run operating
A successful technology standard definitely needs the association's strong support. To be more specific, it's the member companies to actually back up and stand for the standard. A technology standard must have early adopters to attract more supportive vendors to follow up. In this situation, large companies usually have more manpower and resources to do early-stage R&D errands and adopt such technology standard into their spec. Therefore, those associations are often formed by a certain global branding corporations.
Let's take a look at TransferJet. The TransferJet Consortium was initially established by 18 international companies, such as SONY, Toshiba, Panasonic and Samsung. Except for the 18 promoters, there are 36 adopters joining this association cumulative to end of February 2011. These members play the role of checks and balances to provide proper suggestions and opinions in adopters' points of view. To let an association run smoothly, division of labor is required for efficient operation. In TransferJet Consortium's case, three working groupies are divided for technical, certification and marketing purpose. This working pattern equipped the association with a complete and sound structure.
2. Unique and irreplaceable technology
Another key point is that a technology standard needs to retain its uniqueness to keep it self from replacement or duplication. The reason is that vendors would be willing to invest time and effort into a technology standard if it has a highly innovative and exclusive business value.
TransferJet represents its unique technology on this one. The TransferJet Consortium is dedicated in developing close proximity wireless transfer technology which applies NFC (Near Field Communication) technique. The 3 cm data transfer range can easily protect users from the risks of interference or file copy during the transfer process. Unlike traditional NFC, TransferJet allows larger file transferring (up to 560 Mbps) by using UWB (Ultra-Wide Band). This also matches the three declared features of TransferJet: Simple Operation, Safe Connection and Efficient Transfer.
3. Ease-of-use and the potential to be widely adapted
End users care about the most is whether a technology is easy to use without complicated manual settings. TransferJet is an example which applies this concept to its design; data transfer between devices with just a single touch is the highlight.
TransferJet provides some scenarios we can imagine: We want to share photos which are just taken with friends while traveling; we can either send them through email later or burn another Compact Disc after transferring them to the USB drive. Through TransferJet technology, certified devices are able to transfer data with each other in the blink of an eye; therefore, we can share photos immediately and send them to the printer with just a single touch.
TransferJet technology applies to many consumer electronics products such as cameras, camcorders, cell phones, TVs and tablets PCs. It is also planned to expand the future development into digital signage, automotive and healthcare fields.
4. Complete certification management
In a successful technology standard, the third-party test lab is a critical segment in its association to set up the certification testing procedure. The role of third-party test lab is important to assist vendors' products obtain the certified logo and provide consulting service. In addition, the test lab helps monitor the quality of vendors' products and ensure all certified products are well-performed and compliant to the specification. As TransferJet's Qualified Test Laboratories (QTL), Allion provides certification testing services to help vendor go deep into TransferJet technology. Recently Allion is working with TransferJet Consortium closely by holding technical seminars to let local vendors learn more about this unique technical standards, Allion will continue to stand in a professional third-party lab of cooperation with the technical standards to promote the standardization of more industrial technologies.
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