Top 10 computing conflicts

For all the advantages of peace, love and understanding, it seems that conflict is in our very nature.

As science fiction writer Neil Stephenson memorably put it, humans are the product of three billion years of ancestors clawing their way to the top of the genetic pile and, without that drive, we'd just be another set of fossils. There's something in this competition lark.

The IT industry has had its fair share of conflict, either over technological methods, management of companies and resources or the traditional down-and-dirty standards wars for control of an industry sector.

In some cases conflicts harm the industries they are supposed to help. Consumer confusion caused by the recent HD-DVD and Blu-ray standards war set the player market back by a year or two and is still having negative effects. There will also be a lot of HD-DVD players in attics and landfills around the world.

We've tried to limit this list to current issues, rather than rehashing the battles of the past. As ever, the comments box is open for your suggestions.

Honourable Mention: LTE v WiMax
Shaun Nichols: Way back when mobile phones were first starting to take hold, two different wireless standards were vying for adoption. Some carriers went with the GSM, while others went with CDMA.

The result was a situation where in some markets users had different telcos on different systems, and switching carriers could be a royal pain.

Today we have another battle brewing, and it's over wireless broadband. In one camp, there's the WiMax format. On the other side is Long Term Evolution, or LTE. Currently WiMax is in the lead with networks being tested in several US cities. LTE is not far behind, though, with trials planned and some telcos even looking at integrating both standards.

Hopefully things will work out so that one standard wins out and gets adopted by everyone, or methods can be found which allow both to be used, because the last thing customers and manufacturers need is a rehash of GSM/CDMA.

Iain Thomson: As far as I was concerned the Clearwire trials really gutshot WiMax as a telephony technology.

WiMax certainly has its uses as a fast data pipe, but the dream that Intel and others propagated of WiMax opening up a new generation of telephony services was not to be.

It might have been possible to pull a Qualcomm and dominate a local market, and for a time it looked like that might happen in the US and Russia, but LTE is the long-term winner barring a catastrophe.

Honourable Mention: 3G v CDMA
Iain Thomson: Visitors to North America or South Korea are occasionally shocked, and usually irritated, that their GSM-based 3G phones have problems. Around three quarters of the world runs on GSM, while most of the rest relies on CDMA technology designed primarily by Qualcomm.

This war is a bit in the past now, but it's interesting from a business perspective. 3G was developed, in conjunction with manufacturers, by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) as a single global standard. CDMA is a private standard set by Qualcomm.

Initially 3G was a much better bet in terms of performance, largely because having that many smart minds working on a problem tends to get the best solution. However, the wheels of the ITU work slowly and CDMA went through a number of evolutions and caught up fairly quickly.

Now the sole basis for the system you use is where you live. I think if we all just agreed a common standard life would be a lot easier.

Shaun Nichols: Hopefully this one will soon be solved, as either WiMax or LTE looks to become in the new wireless broadband standard.

In the meantime, however, we have to deal with the current mess where companies got on different bandwagons and customers have to deal with sporadic coverage and poor support in certain areas.

I wish that the telcos and handset builders would all get on the same page and settle on a single standard. As we saw first with the Betamax/VCR war and later with the HD-DVD/Blu-ray battle, the film studios all went with one standard.

Once they decided on a format, the battle was all but over and vendors could move forward with devices to support one platform.

Hopefully carriers will decide on one platform and allow adoption to take place with minimal conflict.