Digitization needs open standards

Standards enable interoperability and thus simplify everyday IT. However, many are more or less proprietary and controlled by individual organizations or manufacturers who can restrict their use at will. Fewer and fewer companies want to expose themselves to this sword of Damocles: Especially in times of high digitalization pressure, the flexibility of IT is a critical factor for success. Open standards therefore play a central role for them. As an open source company, ownCloud itself relies on open standards and knows the advantages that result from this.

1. Independence from dominant manufacturers. Open standards are used by non-profit organizations such as OASISthat Internet society with its numerous standardization committees, the ISO or the IEEE developed and maintained. Individual commercial companies - often market-dominating oligopolies - can thus no longer dictate the direction of technological development, which all too often takes place for their own benefit. Rather, actual innovation that is in the market's best interest emerges from the dialogue among the many members of the organization. Examples of open standards include WebDav for file access, OpenID Connect for user authentication or WOPI as an interface for online office.
2. Guaranteed availability. Open standards are available to all market participants, and completely without fees or charges. Proprietary technologies that have achieved de facto standard status and can hardly be ignored are subject to licensing, and the manufacturer can at least theoretically decide whether or under what (legal or technical) conditions to grant licenses.
3. Full interoperability. With open standards, there is no longer any vendor lock-in because all systems or software solutions based on them are compatible with each other without restriction and for an unlimited period of time. Software providers can rely on the fact that their solutions work together with the products of other manufacturers without any problems. Companies secure their digital freedom through open standards - which consists, for example, in being able to exchange software modules without any problems.
4. The freedom of developers. Manufacturers can prohibit the extension of their proprietary standards or refuse to certify them. For developers, this can mean a one-way street - not so with open standards, which do not prohibit any extension. Developers are thus completely free and flexible in designing their systems.

Open source software traditionally supports open standards across the entire software stack, from the operating system to web server technologies to frameworks, libraries, and interfaces. For office applications, solutions such as LibreOffice. Groupware solutions such as Kopano for team chats, for example Rocket.Chat, for video conferencing Jitsi or for project management Kanboard. Content collaboration solutions like ownCloud realize a productive working environment between these and other components and enable central file storage and the efficient exchange of files and documents. Open source software has an additional benefit: It is transparent and thus auditable - companies can convince themselves that the software is free of backdoors and implements open standards in a meaningful way.

Open source and open standards are particularly important for the challenges of digital transformation. Customers with growing requirements, increasing globalization and ever fiercer competition demand new products, great innovative power and optimized processes and smooth workflows. In this environment, companies cannot afford IT that is subject to restrictions. "Vendor-independent open standards and interfaces form the basis for interoperability and efficient competition in these times of rapid change," explains Tobias Gerlinger, CEO and Managing Director of ownCloud. "They offer companies the greatest possible freedom in designing their IT infrastructure and enable companies to build highly available and agile networks that are flexible and easy to manage. Expensive vendor lock-ins can thus be avoided."

Source: ownCloud