> Sounds like a lot of wasted manhours to me

Sounds like a lot of people got paid because of it. That's a win for them. It wasn't their decision, it was company decision to take part in the race. Most likely there will be more than 1 winner anyway.

I'm one of these people. We have to start working on the problem many months before the competition announces that they exist. So we are all just doing parallel evolution here. Everyone agrees that to sit and wait for a standard means you wouldn't waste energy, but you'd also have no influence.

Like you mentioned, its a good time to be employed.