Don't Let DRM Lock You In
A Q and A with John Fowler, CTO, Sun Software
Q: Why does the inclusion of digital rights management (DRM)
capabilities into Microsoft's Office 2003 matter?
A: By including a proprietary digital rights management system into
Microsoft Office, any data created in Microsoft Office can only readable
and used by Microsoft tools which means that you must use the Microsoft
platform. Don't think about this just relation to PCs, this also extends
to other kinds of devices that you use on your network.
You are locking your data to a single vendor. This has always been
Microsoft's strategy, but in the past it has been possible to work
around this strategy. With Office 2003 and the inclusion of DRM, it will
be impossible to work around.
So in this case you can think of Microsoft as owning your data and it
not being owned by you, because in order to read your data you have to
have licensed technology from Microsoft and only Microsoft.
From a long term strategic standpoint, this locks you into Microsoft
into being your only technology provider to read your data.
One of the other impacts is that Office 2003 documents will not be
readable by prior versions of Office. Those of you who implement Office
2003 will also have to require company wide changes to suppliers and
customers to exchange documents. This is a wonderful example of how
Microsoft can extract licensing fees from someone because they take
their dominant position with Office and use it to require an upgrade.
Q:If the market is adopting alternative technologies, then why would
Microsoft do this?
A: An example of alternative technologies is StarOffice and and Open
Office, which is distributed widely on several platforms, including on
Windows and is very popular on the Windows platform. The Open Office
project is open and all data formats are open and currently going
through a standardization process through the Oasis standards body
group. What this means to the customer is that your data will always be
yours and you will never be locked out from being able to read and write
your own data.
It is possible for people to build lots of software applications and
read and write your data.
Q: If the market is adopting alternative technologies, then why would
Microsoft do this?
A: Microsoft is intent on keeping its monopolistic position. Office is
the dominant software productivity package. One of the primary behaviors
of a monopolist is the inability to innovate in a competitive
environment.
Q: If I am worried about the business implications of this move by
Microsoft, what do I do now?
I encourage everyone to look at the alternative technologies that are
available today, such as StarOffice and OpenOffice. They provide
interoperability with all software productivity programs, including
Microsoft Office. If you need to upgrade to Office 2003, I would avoid
upgrading as long as possible.
I also encourage everyone to express your dissatisfaction to Microsoft
and encourage them to join Oasis to work on industry standards for
desktop productivity software.
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