ZDNet UK


Skip to Main Content

ZDNet.co.uk - Winner of Best Business Website 2007
  1. Home
  2. News
  3. Blogs
  4. Reviews
  5. Jobs
  6. Resources
  7. Community
  8. My ZDNet

 

ZDNet UK RSS Feeds


Office applications Toolkit

Email trails lead to DRM

David Becker CNET News.com

Published: 20 Apr 2004 12:45 BST

  • Email
  • Trackback
  • Clip Link
  • Print friendly
  • Post Comment

Lack of interest
But businesses like CaseCentral are still a tiny minority. Outside heavily regulated sectors such as banking, which have already developed industry-specific approaches to document security, there's been little visible interest to date in enterprise DRM.

Reasons include the relative immaturity of the market. Microsoft's product has been available for only four months, and Adobe won't introduce its Policy Server until late this year. That leaves a handful of specialists, led by Liquid Machines, Sealed Media and Authentica.

Even for businesses that do start to think about document security, their huge collections of content, often stored on individual hard drives, can make it tough to develop a comprehensive approach to enterprise DRM, said Joshua Duhl, an analyst for research firm IDC.

"People don't want to admit there's a content problem," he said. "And if they do, people have to have a sense of what's worth securing and what isn't, which can be very difficult to sort out."

The scope of material an enterprise DRM system secures can also make companies reluctant to commit to a software maker. Microsoft's entry into the field sparked fears the company could use secure document format to lock out competing productivity products and other applications.

"I've heard some concerns that (RMS) would make it a requirement to upgrade applications, that you could lock down formats in some way so third-party applications wouldn't be able to open and view them," said Ray Wagner, an analyst for research firm Gartner.

Such concerns have many businesses waiting for a more open approach to enterprise DRM. Lundstrom doesn't expect the field to take off until there are open standards for encryption and other security components.

"DRM could be one of the first big open-source wins" for enterprise applications, he said. "Customers would really see value in open, standards-based robust encryption... When you get into security and encryption as an intellectual discipline, the people driving that forward are completely focused on open source and peer review."

  • Email
  • Trackback
  • Clip Link
  • Print friendlyPrint with Konica

Did you find this article useful?
251 out of 538 people found this useful


Full Talkback thread

1 comment

  1. This is not just an issue for HR and IT; it is a D... Andy Wooles

Company/Topic Alerts

Create a new alert from the list below:



Featured Talkback

In association with Intel
Why do so many (virtually all) software packages think that they are so important that they have to be started automatically every time the computer boots? What is the largest number of "speed access", "update check", "camera download" and whatever other background programs you have ever seen running? Of those, how many did you really need?

By: J.A. Watson

Read full story:
Annoying software: a rogues' gallery

Discussions

Telic Telic

MacLinux

Friday 10 October 2008, 10:34 PM

5 comments
1000215420 1000215420

Punishment & Deterrent

Friday 10 October 2008, 9:37 PM

4 comments
1000215420 1000215420

Punishment & Deterrent

Friday 10 October 2008, 9:36 PM

4 comments
1000215420 1000215420

Lack of Individual Responsibility

Friday 10 October 2008, 9:32 PM

1 comment

Vista Upgrade Blog

Vista - Still Running and Stable After...

Six weeks ago, when I wrote Renewed Adventures with Vista, I wondered if Microsoft had finally managed to fix it sufficiently that I wouldn't be forced to give up on it after a few... More

Post a comment

Official MS Windows 7 Bloggers

Check this out: http://blogs.msdn.com/e7...spx Its an official blog "Engineering Windows 7" Nothing. That's what is revealed. Until there is real... More

5 comments

Microsoft's Mojave just a desert vista

It didn't seem fair to wade into Microsoft's “Mojave Experiment” advert quite so soon after the flat earth incident. But The Economist has no such qualms: in this week's issue, it wonders... More

6 comments