The end users
obviously wanted to leverage the benefits of these new features as well and being able
to do so with the assurance of interoperability between devices from different vendors
(as a consequence of standardization employed by these vendors) meant accelerating
the acceptance of Ethernet in the marketplace.
Commercialization Although there were standards for the different LAN technologies,
only the IEEE 802.3 was widely adopted because it was promoted as an open standard
that anyone could use to implement Ethernet NIC hardware by paying a small
licensing fee.29 This unique model was also aligned with the manufacturers??™ approach
to the various devices (PCs, printers, etc.) present in the LAN; they did not integrate
Ethernet itself into their devices but rather relied on NIC manufacturers (of Ethernet,
Token Ring, etc.)??”ostensibly, at least in the earlier days, because they wanted to have
the option of employing the best possible solution in terms of cost and features. While
this was meaningful initially, Ethernet with its growing customer base and product
innovation soon became the obvious choice and was embraced by the manufacturers of
LAN devices.
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