de facto standard

A widespread consensus on a particular product or protocol

which has not been ratified by any official standards body,

such as ISO, but which nevertheless has a large market

share.

The archetypal example of a de facto standard is the IBM PC

which, despite is many glaring technical deficiencies, has

gained such a large share of the personal computer market

that it is now popular simply because it is popular and

therefore enjoys fierce competition in pricing and software

development.

(1994-10-27)