Walled Gardens Versus Open Standards
In an ideal world, any true information appliance would be able to communicate with any other information appliance using open standard protocols and technologies, regardless of the maker of the software or the hardware. The communications aspects and all user interface elements would be designed together so that a user could switch seamlessly from one information appliance to another.
Some vendors are attempting to create "walled gardens" of closed proprietary content for information appliances, leveraging existing proprietary technologies. However, with the exception of NTT DoCoMo's i-mode, these efforts have been less successful than predicted, due to the willingness of most vendors to work together within open standards frameworks, and the pre-existing widespread adoption of open standards such as GSM, IP, SMS and SMTP.
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Famous quotes containing the words walled, gardens, open and/or standards:
“Hell isn’t merely paved with good intentions; it’s walled and roofed with them. Yes, and furnished too.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)
“The devout have laid out gardens in the desert.”
—Robert Duncan (b. 1919)
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—Barbara Tuchman (1912–1989)
“A generation which has passed through the shop has absorbed standards and ambitions which are not of those of spaciousness, and cannot get away from them. Everything with them is done as though for sale, and they naturally have in view the greatest possible benefit, profit and that end of the stuff that will make the best show.”
—Alexander Herzen (1812–1870)