A handful of companies have been publicly demonstrating products that use a new standard called Intelligent Grouping and Resource Sharing (IGRS), which is similar to an Intel Corp. sponsored effort being promoted by the Digital Home Working Group.

In a recent report, iSuppli Corp. analyst Nancy Dang wrote: "Due to the strong government support, it is likely that IGRS will be the next Chinese standard following Chinese WAPI, EVD, the Digital Terrestrial Transmission Standard and others. These standards are meant to compete with the similar overseas standards developed by the Digital Home Working Group (DHWG)." EVD is an optical disc format that competes with DVD.

The IGRS standard is intended to facilitate the network interaction among disparate electronics devices and, like the work being done by the DHWG, will be a key underpinning of the "digital home," an environment where PCs talk to TVs, cellphones control air conditioners and PDA's download grocery lists from intelligent refrigerators.

China has rallied 22 local companies to support its emerging standard, including PC makers Lenovo Group and Great Wall Computer Co. Ltd., along with leading consumer electronics and communications makers such as TCL Group, Konka Group, and Hisense Group.

The influential Ministry of Information Industry (MII) is involved in the effort and, according to iSuppli, the IGRS has finished work on the basic protocols and has delivered v1.0 of the standard. The goal is to complete the standard, which uses a TCP/IP-based application protocol, by the end of the year. Development tools will follow next year and a final protocol will be ready in 2005.

That coincides with the timeline of the DHWG, which includes 134 members, such as Sony Corp., Microsoft Corp. and Philips Electronics. Dang said IGRS will probably cooperate with DHWG, but only after supporters build a war chest of IP that could be horse-traded against that of foreign companies interested in implementing the Chinese standard. Notably, Lenovo is the leader of the Chinese project and also a member of the DHWG.

Last summer, when China formed its digital home group, there appeared to be little interest in DHWG's work. Konka, one of the founding members of the Chinese group, was particularly critical of foreign companies, issuing a statement that said: "The establishment of the IGRS working group reflects the desire of Chinese companies to get rid of the dominance of core technologies and standards of foreign big names in the information technology industry."

Since then, however, several Chinese companies have quietly joined the DHWG, including Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd., UTStarcom Inc., ZTE Corp., TCL and even the outspoken Konka.

The low-key merging of the groups could signal that China doesn't want a replay of WAPI, or Wireless LAN Authentication and Privacy Infrastructure, a mandatory wireless LAN standard that nearly prompted the U.S. to file a complaint with the World Trade Organization.

"It is still too early to say whether IGRS or DHWG will be popular in China," Dang said. "DHWG will have technology advantages and will prove to be popular worldwide. Meanwhile, it is possible that IGRS will become a Chinese industry standard in cooperation with DHWG, if the Ministry of Information Industry makes great efforts to push this standard."

By: DocMemory
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