IEEE-ISTO
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| Founded | January 1999 |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Piscataway, New Jersey, US |
| Website | www |
The Industry Standards and Technology Organization (ISTO) is a not-for-profit organization established by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) in 1999.[1] Its purpose is to accelerate the development and adoption of technology standards by helping its member organizations set up as legal entities and support their ongoing operation.[1] Organized as a global 501(c)(6) not-for-profit corporation, it functions as a federation of industry alliances, consortia, and trade groups.[1]
By contracting to join the ISTO federation, alliances and other collective startups are able to form a legal and autonomous not-for-profit collective entity. ISTO’s legal infrastructure offloads from member alliances the annual obligations of entity insurance coverage, annual financial audits and annual tax filings. On a daily basis, ISTO provides operational support to its member programs.
The ISTO was formed in January 1999 to provide the IEEE with more flexibility in supporting standards creation by groups that found the conventional IEEE process of standards creation ineffective.[1][2]
After eighteen months of planning and development, the IEEE announced the formation of a new, independent, not-for-profit corporation named the IEEE Industry Standards and Technology Organization (ISTO).
The formation of the ISTO was approved by the IEEE Board of Directors in November 1998, based upon a five-year business plan. The goal of the ISTO was to provide a link between standards development activity in informal consortia and the formal standards activities of the IEEE. By offering a wide variety of management, operational and technical support to industry participants setting specifications outside of the traditional process used by SDOs (standards development organizations) like the IEEE Standards Association, the ISTO would meet an industry need while maintaining an affiliation with IEEE.
When the ISTO was formed, the IEEE was the sole founding member. IEEE provided the ISTO with a line of credit to fund initial operations which was repaid years later as ISTO continued to grow. The ISTO headquarters was located within the IEEE Operations Center in Piscataway, NJ.
Member programs
In 2000, the ISTO Staff and the Board of Directors undertook a marketing and promotion campaign which resulted in the Medical Device Communications Industry Group (MDCIG), the Printer Working Group (PWG), and the Nexus5001 Forum becoming the first three programs of ISTO.
As the year 2000 drew to a close, the number of Programs supported by the ISTO had grown to eight VoiceXML Forum, MessageML, SyncML, the Broadband Wireless internet Forum (BWIF) and the 1355 Association.
The concept of the ISTO as an umbrella organization under which industry standards activities could be performed efficiently and successfully had been demonstrated and the opportunities for new Programs continued to grow. The addition of three more Programs in 2001 [Customized learning Experience Online (CLEO) lab, Wireless Village and Mobile Games Interoperability Forum (MGIF)] brought the number of Programs to eleven.
With the ongoing increase of new ISTO programs over the years, it became necessary to add staff resources and tools to provide professional support.