The IEEE-SA has eliminated it's roughly $3,800 fee for each standards effort in which a company participates. In its place it has set up two membership categories.

Companies now can take out a basic membership to observe or an advanced membership to vote in an unlimited number of standards efforts. Both memberships are charged at rates based on the company's annual revenues.

The advanced memberships start at $3,500/year for companies with less than $5 million in annual revenues and max out at $10,000/year for companies with revenues of more than $500 million/year. The basic memberships start at $1,250 and max out at $5,500 with two intermediate tiers.

Eliminating fees to participate in each standards effort "frees up technical contributors from the need to justify participation," said Steve Mills, chair of the IEEE's corporate advisory group.

"I think we will see more projects as a result of this because we have made it easier for technical people to bring their work into the organization," said Mills who also serves as senior architect in the industry standards program office at Hewlett-Packard. "What we have learned is the [previous] model was somewhat confusing for participants who wanted to work on multiple projects," he added.