World Standards Day may also be a time to appreciate the increasing challenges faced by standards bodies. Technologies seem to be evolving at an ever-accelerating pace, and growing ever more complex.

An increasing number of standards are being developed to help build what Saunders calls systems-of-systems. Cloud computing, which rests on many layers of standards, is one example of a system-of-systems, as is health IT, the smart grid and some areas of nanotechnology. "Technology solutions are more complex," Saunders said.

"Even 10 years ago, most standardization was about how a product conforms to a performance requirement or a service. [But] interoperability is a huge driver today, and that is a relatively new feature," Saunders said.

Today, for instance, the W3C is extending its standards for rendering Web pages, such as HTML (Hypertext Markup Language), so that the Web , ones that can run across multiple computing platforms.

"It is in the nature of companies to compete in areas they see differential value for themselves, and to collaborate in areas where they will all benefit in collaboration. For the Web platform, there is a clear conclusion that collaboration wins big-time," Jaffe said.