Standardization Leads to Global Markets

摘要

Making a connection between successful innovation and standardization may seem like a non sequitur, but history teaches us that neither can survive―much less thrive―without the other. Thomas Edison's lightbulb was a dramatic invention, but the standards it spawned from power delivery to the simple screw-base socket became critical to the creation of a sustainable and worldwide market. In 1879, Edison publicly demonstrated his incandescent electric lightbulb, and just three years later he supervised the standardized installation of the first for-profit central station in the United States, in lower Manhattan, for the distribution of electricity to fewer than 100 customers. Fast forward another 10 years and hundreds of patents later, and the Wizard of Menlo Park merged his company, Edison Electric Light Co., with a competitor to form General Electric. And, as they say, the rest is history.