[LaGow]

First, go read this CNET article describing Microsoft's latest upgrade to Office.

Seems its most salient feature is what MS is calling "Windows Rights Management" but what is obviously an attempt to force upgrades by making Office 2003 docs closed to anyone but other Office 2003 users.

This strategy may backfire when the hoped-for lock-in becomes lock-out for many users who don't upgrade.

[clarkgoble]

As others have pointed out only some documents will have DRM. Basically it is just the ability to limit who can read what portions of the text. In a way it is just the same as how in OSX you can have some files read only by certain users. This actually is a very good feature. However most people will not use it - primarily just business users and likely only a few of them. (I don't recall, but I believe a server is required to get DRM to work)

So yes, DRM will keep OpenOffice, Appleworks, AbiWord or others from reading DRM encoded Word or Excel files. But they'll be able to read non-DRM files.

[LaGow]

Originally posted by clarkgoble:
As others have pointed out only some documents will have DRM. Basically it is just the ability to limit who can read what portions of the text. In a way it is just the same as how in OSX you can have some files read only by certain users. This actually is a very good feature. However most people will not use it - primarily just business users and likely only a few of them. (I don't recall, but I believe a server is required to get DRM to work)

So yes, DRM will keep OpenOffice, Appleworks, AbiWord or others from reading DRM encoded Word or Excel files. But they'll be able to read non-DRM files.

Yes, the article mentions that a server will be required for the DRM feature. I am persuaded that this might work internally for some organizations, but it doesn't seem to offer anything real over simply encrypting a document--except possibly convenience depending upon how the feature is implemented. Seems to me it's yet one more step to take and many more dollars to spend to get it done.

[absmiths]

Yeah, the result will probably be a lot of techs who can't get it working and spending an innordinate amount of time trying to figure out why the CEO can't open a doc sent via email.

[businezguy]

It seems absurd that Microsoft would require Microsoft Server just to implement DRM. It's just like Microsoft to make something overly complicated.