“My daughter has an Apple iBook, a far better laptop than mine, and she loves it,” writes analyst Bill Thompson for BBC News. “She can use our wireless network to surf the web or meet her friends online. She can research school projects and write her essays. And she can transfer documents to and from the desktop PC if she needs to use programs that only run on Windows to make changes.”
“Apart from occasional problems with fonts, which are managed differently by Windows and MacOS, the stuff she writes in Word on her Mac can be edited on a PC or even by StarOffice on Linux. Unfortunately this may not be true for much longer,” warns Thompson.
“When Microsoft releases Office 2003 in October, it will include a digital rights management system that allows documents to be locked and viewed only by those with permission. It could quickly lead to a situation in which those who do not use Microsoft programs are unable to exchange files with those who do, and lock even more people into Microsoft’s way of doing things. It could also seriously damage our ability to share information freely over the internet,” Thompson writes.
Thompson writes, “The new feature, Information Rights Management, is being presented as a way for organisations to keep their internal files safe and secure, and as an anti-piracy measure. However once it is in widespread use it will make non-Microsoft programs that read and write Office files unusable, and give Microsoft an even larger share of the market for word processors, spreadsheets and presentation software. This will happen because the new Office file formats will be incompatible with earlier ones, and because they incorporate features to protect copyright.”
Thompson concludes, “It is not too late for government action. There is no realistic prospect that the US administration will do anything which might upset or oppose Microsoft, but here in Europe we have a more robust attitude to the company and its activities. If Microsoft is going to roll out digital rights management in software that will be used by many European companies, surely the European Commission or our MEPs should be taking an interest – before we find that we have given up any possibility of asserting proper democratic control over this important technology?”
Full article here.
Well we knew this was coming. Sanction them, fine them, label them monopoly. They will find someway to force you to use their products only. Kind like if ford all of a sudden announced their cars would run on Amaco gas only.
Helps to that since Bush took office we haven’t seen much in the way of enforced anti-trust measures enforced against MS. in fact it has completly faded from everyones consciousness.
I guess a war isn’t only good for a presidents approval ratings, it also helps to refocus the media.
*Sigh* I guess we will just all have to suffer through more MS world domination schemes. My guess is by 2008 BG will have saved up around 200 Billion $ and announce that he will pay every voting american and illegal immigrant $500 to elect him president.
Vice president Balmer
ARGHHHHH
Sure, let’s just take the easy way out and blame GWB for everything that ever goes wrong…whatever makes you feel better I guess…
Anyone out there still doubting Micros**t is a monopoly?
I would expect to see Apple or some one else expand Appleworks 6 or programs like it to replace the M$ garbage. There seams to be an attitude of approaching disaster every time Bill and the boys pull some of their bull shit. However if there is a void it gets filled, a basic law of nature which I think will happen in this case. Hope fully by 2008 M$ will be a bad memory. Bush sucks, as do all politicians, just like M$ and Bill. Talk about your empires of evil. The legal actions against M$ in Europe might be the firsts real cracks in the M$ foundation and not the buy off that happened in the US.
This is tied into the Virtual PC pruchase. Now MS will make you get a Windows copy of Office and VPC, otherwise your old Office v.X files won’t be accessible to people. This solution will allow them to fight the monopoly charges by saying “if they want it, it’s there for them to purchase. All they need is VPC.”
Duh.
“Assert power over this technology…” blah blah blah blah..
Duh duh duh!
JUST DON’T USE IT!!!
Criminey.
The real issue is interoperability.
Take the example of the aerospace industry. Virtually all projects invovled a dozen or more large to huge companies and several dozen smaller companies. If I have a large project at Boeing or Lockheed and we are teamed with Northrop and Raytheon and each of us have several subcontractors then we must be able to transfer and edit documents among the team members. If I, as the lead, am Lockheed or Boeing, and I upgrade to these new Office apps — because MS has come in and told the senior IT people this will make my documents more secure and readable only by my team members and no one else — then the entire team must upgrade to the new Office apps.
This then is a “forced upgrade” of dozens and dozens of companies. All MS had to do was convince the Lockheed or Boeing senior IT people it was the best thing to do. They only have to target a handfull of people and put a hard press on them showing all the “benefits” of the Informatin Rights Management system (among whatever the other “bells and whistles have been added). With a focused effort like that MS almost always makes the sale. The cascade effect is that MS almost automatically now has made sales to many dozen other companies.
I’m sure there are many, many other examples of this same cascade effect it I think of it. The aerospace example is just the first and clearest one which came to mind.
MS has been declared a monopoly in the desktop OS arena and thus had to change its tactics in its expansion methods. Clearly it has now decided the office application arena is the area to do this — an area incidentally where it has not legally been declared a monopoly. Therefore the laws and legal rulings which apply to monopolies do not yet apply here. MS knows this. Until they are declared a monopoly in the desktop office application arena doing things like this are perfectly legal.
Sad, but true.
The only real “punishment” MS should have been given after having been convicted of illegally abusing their monopoly: Enter into the public domain the specification for every file format–past, present, and future–of all documents used by all versions of their Office applications.
The posting from the person who noted the GWB adminstration as being easy on Microsoft was **NOT** “taking the easy way out.”
Whether people want to admit it or not, GWB favors big businesses that generate big bucks, including Microsoft.
There have been a few articles about this all over, and it is not really that big a deal, for it to work there needs to be a server that records (issues, someething like that) the DRM scheme, the average home user is not going to be using this.
it won’t actually stop un-DRM’d files from being open, it is an option for sensitive documents etc.
1984
I think many of you aren’t getting the point, I don’t think the author is getting the point either. This digital rights management is a security feature not a way to limit usage of the file to only Microsoft. This feature will allow you to secure individual files. You do not HAVE to use it, if the folks you are sharing files with do not have Word, then you unlock the file, if security is still an issue for you, simply use another solution, like Stuffit with a password.
It is not a question of having a choice of locking files up or not. At the start you may have a choice, later M$ will choose for you and you won’t have a choice on what apps to use but theirs. THIS IS ONLY THE BEGINNING.
They can have it.
The worms, viruses and such.
“The posting from the person who noted the GWB adminstration as being easy on Microsoft was **NOT** “taking the easy way out.”
Whether people want to admit it or not, GWB favors big businesses that generate big bucks, including Microsoft.”
Gates, calling Bush, says “Hey, I’ve got this idea.” Bush, in response, comments “I don’t care what it is. I love big business and you’re a big business. Go for it. I am president and I can do this.”
Is this how it went down Scoo?
I swear to God some people think the just because a guy is president he has omnipotent powers over everything and anything.
Note: I don’t recall reading any article about Bush having a desk in the center of Miscrosoft’s R&D department. Could you please point me to a link?
Or Microsoft’s R&D department either!
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=P
Well in one hand is forcing the upgrade. The money involved is simply phenomenal. Then there will be the incompatibility with non M$ product: since when M$ released the format of their products? Do they have reasons to do that? No way.
The argument will be: other non M$ products could not fully ensure compliance with the MS RDM scheme. Hence the next move will be to lock other non MS products in order to read secured documents. Then the hassle of switching back and forth to two different applications.
Scenario:
Bill: “Steve, I am sending you this secure document, you do have Word 2003 do you?”. Oh, nope, but I do Appleworks Extreme which fully compatible, send it along”
Now, what is the most credible reply in your opinion:
a) Bill: “Oh great, incoming”
b) Bill: “No way dude, I cannot trust that. Install first Word 2003 and THEN I’ll send you the file. Get real.”
In case you are still in doubt: the FORMAT is different. It does not matter whether you send a secured or unsecured document. There is NOT backward compatibility (never has been with Microso**t products anyway).
So in order to read Word 2003, secured or unsecured, you do need to upgrade.
Current non MS products that today read Word documents (or convert them) will not work with Word 2003 without being rewritten and – knowing Micros**t practices – I doubt they will receive any help for the new format and RDM security scheme, hence the scenario prospected by the article.
roehl: are you serious?
” You do not HAVE to use it, if the folks you are sharing files with do not have Word, then you unlock the file “
Which employee will unsecure a file just because on the other end they do not have the new Office?
And again, it does not matter whether the security is on or off. There is no backward compatibility: file format is different.
The lack of backward compatibility is a marketing *feature*. Forces everyone to upgrade (please, recall the history of Word and PowerPoint versions) and makes life difficult for other companies providing compatible products: at each new version BANG, they are obsolete.
To all who are in America reading this………
the DRM from M$ is their foray into controlling software compatability accross platforms, bottom line. They don’t want ANYONE being able to read their documents, and have created this crap to do just that. And, in America, we seem to think nothing of it…..More frightening, is the fact that there are so many who shurg shoulders and just say “this sucks, but…..” I figure within a couple of years, either Micro$not will be out of business (yep, believe it, at least in Europe an Asia), because most of these areas are getting rid of this monopoly’s hold right now, or, they will be (for businesses) the only game in town…..As for our beloved Mac, well, I kinda figure that it’ll keep on going like the Bunny…..
As for the DRM, it’s not only microsnot’s creation, but ShrubCo’s dream…..and I cannot wait to see the stories about how M$ worked with the present administration to control and watch documents in the name of “security”.
It’s too bad that the lemmings are heading out to sea…..
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