Standards Assessment in Disruptive Innovation: A Software Prototype for Cloud Computing

Standards impact interoperability, portability, and security of products or services. Standards contribute to open and flexible systems that, in turn, are a catalyst for the uptake of new technologies. The assessment of standards in disruptive innovation is, however, challenged by uncertainty over markets, technology evolution, and organizational change. The dynamics of technology progression, furthermore, contribute to high assessment efforts, leading to situations where up-to-date information on standards is effectively missing. In this paper, we build upon previous work on a model and method to support assessment of standards in disruptive innovation. We summarize the methods potentials for reducing standards assessment efforts and automation. Thereupon, we propose a conceptual software architecture for standards assessment platforms and instantiate the platform for the domain of cloud computing. Our discussion of the Cloud Standards Assessment Platform will present the user experience and reflect the realizability of automation potentials in standards assessment. We give an outlook on future work and platform adoption to conclude this paper.