A number of important issues form the basis of this book: How can the Information Technology (IT) standardization process, leading to unified products which are needed on the market, be made more efficient? Which current IT standards are of high quality, what factors have led to that high quality, and can those factors be re-created for other IT standards? What improvements to the quality of IT standards are needed? Which organizations should be involved? What permanent changes in the IT standardization scene are necessary? At what point in the evolution of a technology is it appropriate to produce standards? Is strategic planning feasible in the current standardization approach? Diverse disciplines contributed to the findings in this book: computer scientists, standardization leaders and professionals, users and vendors, economists, auditors, software implementors, and communication specialists.