RE: placing a dollar value on IETF IP.

["Hallam-Baker, Phillip" <pbaker@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Title: RE: placing a dollar value on IETF IP.

Exactly, replacing SMTP for email alone is a non-starter.

 

But it is entirely possible to replace a subset of SMTP functionality that the protocol handles poorly or provide a better superset.

 

For example, NNTP gots its start by providing a more efficient means of distributing mailing lists. RSS is now plugging the same niche in a much more scalable manner.

 

Alternatively, it is quite possible that a future protocol might address asynchronous and synchronous messaging in a wide spectrum of media (short message, mail messag, audio, video) in a better fashion than is provided in separate protocols today.

 

 

The key here however is the fact that switching costs for 'email' are not the same as switching costs for 'SMTP'. Providing new protocol servers also support the old, a transition could leverage the DNS to effect a seamless transition. SRV and DNS policy signalling are your friend.

 

That said, any new protocol would have to use the DNS and MIME content types at a minimum.

 

---

From: John C Klensin [mailto:john-ietf@xxxxxxx]
Sent: Tue 10/28/2008 1:12 PM
To: Hallam-Baker, Phillip; Andrew G. Malis
Cc: tbray@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx; IETF Discussion
Subject: RE: placing a dollar value on IETF IP.

--On Tuesday, 28 October, 2008 08:02 -0700 "Hallam-Baker,
Phillip" <pbaker@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>...
> It is also a neat rebuttal to the claim that network effects
> do not exist - as Margolis and co claimed in their laughable
> tract. If the issue were decided on technical grounds alone
> the US and Europe would have chosen the same base years ago.
> The US has not moved to the superior Swan mount because the
> short term switching costs outweigh the long term advantages.
> Change is only possible when a technology disruption occurs
> that negates the advantage of the legacy base. In the case of
> lightbulbs it is compact flourescents and LED bulbs, in the
> case of keyboards it would probably take really good
> handwriting recognition.

One could, of course, make many of the same observations about
replacing SMTP and/or today's Internet mail formats with some
newly-invented and improved system, replacing HTTP with
something more elegantly designed based on what we know about
computer systems today, etc., as well as failure to harmonize
residential supply voltages around the world.  Whether the
problem is one of network effects or the related one of the
costs of replacing/ converting a large installed base, the
consequences are the same: mere incremental technical
superiority is almost never sufficient to motivate an
incompatible change.

   john

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