One of the most important elements in the computer revolution has been agreement on technological standards. The advances in communication allowed by millions of computers connecting over various networks are based on these networks sharing a common language. This book tells the complete story of the battle between several competing technologies in the late 1970s and early 1980s to become the compatibility standard in one high-tech arena, the LAN (local area network) industry.

In the end, a single technology succeeded in dominating the entire industry: Ethernet. The author argues that Ethernet triumphed not because it was better or cheaper, but because of a clever strategy by Ethernet’s corporate sponsors. This strategy mandated the building of a large supplier base around the technology in order to compensate for an inability to produce all required components and devices. Within a few years, Ethernet had greatly surpassed its competitors in gaining suppliers, which included specialized start-ups, semiconductor firms, and established computer manufacturers. This supplier advantage proved an invaluable strategic asset. As suppliers developed various price and product advantages that were easily adopted by Ethernet, its competitors were driven out of the market.

Key to understanding the importance of a supplier base in the race for standards is the crucial role of a technological community. The book demonstrates how technological communities account not only for critical differences in the standardization strategies of various LAN vendors, but also for the emergence of other important instances of technological competition. For example, the recent rise of Linux and Java can be seen as the result of successful community-driven strategies.

The story of the battle for the LAN standard is also a story of the Internet more broadly, and so the book offers unique insights into its dazzling growth, as LANs became important corporate on-ramps to the Internet and several LAN suppliers (such as 3Com) evolved into leading suppliers of Internet technology.

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This account combines careful datagathering with solid analysis and clear exposition. For anyone who is interested in either (1) the economics of standardization or (2) the history of modern computation, this book rates somewhere on the scale ranging from Must-have to Extremely-desireable.

1 of 1 found the following review helpful:

Worthy Addition to Standardization Theory CanonMay 14, 2008
By O. Kagan "lifeinoleg"
In The Triumph of Ethernet, Urs von Burg takes the reader through a history of the development of LANs, with particular focus given to the fidelity of standardization theory compared with a case study of the LAN standards battle, from which Ethernet came out as the victorious de-jure and de-facto standard. The addition to standardization theory made by Burg is in the positive role open systems and communities play in driving standards. His thesis insisted that it was due to the community built by proponents of Ethernet and the open standards(IEEE 802) they cooperated in developing that Ethernet was able to beat out proprietary LAN systems and the IBM-backed Token-Ring.

By combing through the same time-periods with a view on different companies, the reader gets a handle of the tactics(short-term) and strategies(long-term) used by the proponents of various LANs in the successes and failures of their essays into the marketplace. This method of telling the story is an excellent way of preventing specifics from becoming too overwhelming for the reader - it does, however, make it difficult to keep track of concurrent events, especially during periods of high activity. Through repetition, the author mostly alleviated confusion, though repetition can be annoying in it's own right.

Urs von Burg uses the word community in describing the companies that formed around Ethernet technology, though as he continually mentions there was as much - if not more - competition among community members as there was cooperation; this, and the lack of definition given to community makes his view of the word and its implications somewhat vague - as opposed to books that are entrenched in theory, The Triumph of Ethernet is overly concerned with events, which though important, take the author's writing/time away from theoretical considerations concerning technological communities; this is made obvious in the final chapter, Implications, which offers few lessons that have not been repeated several times in previous sections.

Despite these negative points, this title offers compelling reasons why open systems/standards which engender communities can be better than proprietary systems at ensuring the success of a technology(though Not always individual firms). Likewise for those interested in the history of computer networking, Urs von Burg's book offers a feast.

Note: Originally(before I read the book), I thought this book was designed to promote the 'how-to' and 'why' aspects of technological communities to a primarily business audience in a fashion similar to Wikinomics. This turned out not to be the case as is indicated by the tone, the depth of the historical analysis, and focus on the success of a technology rather than individual firms.

5 stars with a few flawsFeb 22, 2008
By Jeff
The Triumph of Ethernet is an unusual book. It deals with a fairly technical topic, but is is not about technology. Rather it is about how various micro-economic theories fare when used to explain why one type of Local Area Networking (LAN) technology over took all others, and to a lesser degree, why some firms did very well and other firms died.

As someone who has been involved with Ethernet for a few decades, this was a very enjoyable stroll down memory lane, albeit one that offered some hitherto unknown facts. As someone who has participated in various IEEE standardization efforts, it was very revealing about what strategies work and which don't. As someone who is constantly frustrated at how dry most micro-economic discussions are, this was a refreshing commingling of theories and practical observations. Anyone who has ever been in networking will find this book quite interesting.

There are a few flaws. First of all, I wish the author had known more about LAN technology. He missed a great proof point of his major argument about network effects in the fight between HP and 3Com/Grand Junction for the format of 100 Megabit Ethernet. As another reviewer has noted, he gives too short a shrift to the impediments to so called Soderblom patent made for Token Ring. And some times he gets his time frames wrong. In discussing ARPANET, he concludes that it was very important for its impact in the 1960's and 1970's because of the birth of the Internet and the World Wide Web. The first World Wide Web site did not go up until 1990, at CERN where Tim Berners-Lee invented it.

That said, it is rare to find a book that so skillfully mixes economic theory with practical observations of an industry that has changed the way a few billion people work, live, and play. Highly recommended despite its few flaws.

Excellent tale,and framework telling how innovations spreadAug 04, 2003
By Hugh Claffey
I read this book after I had read `Where Wizards Stay up Late', and I think this helped. Von Burg' book tells the tale of how the Ethernet protocol for connecting computers in an office building (a `local area' as opposed to a `wide area' e.g. across town) became the de-facto accepted standard over the decade of the 1980's. His case is that widespread adoption of the standard created a `community' of users and developers who were able to rapidly overcome any deficiencies in the standard, and that the wider this community the faster the developments, therefore the more rapid the advances over competing standards (in this case Token-Ring, backed mainly by IBM). The book builds the story quite well, and pulls no punches about the deficiencies of Ethernet - very cumbersome cabling, initially quite narrow bandwidth. He comes up with the best explanation of the Hub versus Bus configurations of connections which I have come across ( remote maintainability - but read the book).

As well as a fascinating layout of the story of Ethernet and its many iterations and close shaves on the way to becoming the de-facto LAN (local area network) standard Von Burg puts together a wider theoretical basis to describe the diffusion of innovations. In this process he links the triumph of Ethernet (mainly its widespread developer `community') with the open source movement (e.g. Linux developers), and ends up stating that the movement which attracts the widest `community' must ultimately win. There are holes in this argument (e.g. how does a voluntary community produce a working, commercially-usable, supportable product on time, every time), but it is the first time I have seen this argument so persuasively articulated. On this technology-communitarian theory, the individual firm, no matter how bigger, can no longer compete with a diverse community of developers. Its very current when you see Linux and Microsoft slug it out for space in corporate computer rooms.

Complete and easy to readMar 06, 2002
By An anonymous engineer
I have just leafed through the book---cannot say that I have really read it yet. However, I know some of this history and some of the people. This account appears to combine careful datagathering with solid analysis and clear exposition. For anyone who is interested in either (1) the economics of standardization or (2) the history of moderning computation, this book rates somewhere on the scale ranging from Must-have to Extremely-desireable."

A little nit, the controversy regarding the Soderblom's token ring patent is restricted to a footnote.