Microsoft Rights Management Beta Has a Mixed Reception
Beta News reports on Microsoft's latest downloads of its nascent rights management package, designed for compatability with both Office 2003 applications and ihncluding a "light' plugin that will allow HTML-formatted email messages to be protected as well. But with strong ties into their .NET Passport identity management services and hardware-specific (read: Microsoft-friendly hardware) usage, the overall focus on this capability thus far is far less on enabling the distribution of valuable content to desired audiences than it is on locking in corporate infrastructure at the server and user level to Microsoft solutions. We expect that it will be a popular solution for those institutions that are anxious to lock down content from prying eyes, and comments from readers of the Beta News article seem to indicate some reasonable level of user acceptance is likely. But for those hoping to enable relationships effectively through content, its limitations on platform compatability, especially for mobile devices, and the additional "hoops" required to lock people into Microsoft network services may make this a no-starter for many individuals. And without buy-in from individuals, the authors and audiences that drive content in most institutions, I.T. centric approaches to rights managment are likely to flounder.