On one hand the corporation benefits financially, on the other hand the users get to create technical fiefdoms, exercise their local authority, personal independence and creativity. Which to choose. Which to choose. Creating standards and then enforcing and monitoring them are undeniably incredibly difficult tasks. Anyone embarking on such a project had better pay close attention to the suggestions regarding the management of change in Chapter One .
Few companies are able to maintain any standards consistently across an entire organization.
The benefits are however, or at least should be, obvious. Standards are seldom seen in the corporate world. The honest answer is that adherence to standards is sometimes an accident of coincidence. At the risk of getting assassinated by outraged and indignant IT managers, standards aren't the norm because they are too difficult to implement and maintain. It is not that there is a lack of financial justification or that standards are somehow a 'bad idea,' it's that the management of standards requires above average management skills.