<http://news.com.com/2100-1012_3-5069246.html?tag=fd_lede1_hed>

They can't be serious.

--
We are Microsoft of Borg. You will be assimilated. Stability is irrelevant.
Where _you_ want to go to today is irrelevant. We will add your currency to
our own. Bend over right now. Resistance is futile.

In article <0001HW.BB7B6C42007709DDF0407600[at]enews.newsguy.com>,
Charles Dyer <charlesd[at]newsguy.com> wrote:

> They can't be serious.

Oh, but they are - and a certain subset of MS customers (mostly
large corporations who buy thousands of licenses at a time) are
clamoring for it. This has been announced for months now...

However, since it requires Server2003 to implement, a lot of their
clients won't be able, or inclined, to use it. It will be great for
internal corporate documents, and for distribution of sensitive
documents to consultants and other outside workers.

That is if it's implemented elegantly and securely. Big Ifs.

On 9/4/03 12:00 AM, in article
0001HW.BB7B6C42007709DDF0407600[at]enews.newsguy.com, "Charles Dyer"
<charlesd[at]newsguy.com> wrote:

> They can't be serious.

Why is this surprising? MS has always been upfront about who it primarily
serves: corporate customers. This is an attractive feature for companies.

Given MS's track record with security in the Windoze environment, though,
I'm surprised any corporation would trust MS security.

Gene

On 9/3/03 8:28 AM, in article
jemcgimpsey-C4BEA4.09284003092003[at]msnews.microsoft.com, "J.E. McGimpsey"
<jemcgimpsey[at]mvps.org> wrote:

> In article <0001HW.BB7B6C42007709DDF0407600[at]enews.newsguy.com>,
> Charles Dyer <charlesd[at]newsguy.com> wrote:
>
>> They can't be serious.
>
> Oh, but they are - and a certain subset of MS customers (mostly
> large corporations who buy thousands of licenses at a time) are
> clamoring for it. This has been announced for months now...
>
> However, since it requires Server2003 to implement, a lot of their
> clients won't be able, or inclined, to use it. It will be great for
> internal corporate documents, and for distribution of sensitive
> documents to consultants and other outside workers.
>
> That is if it's implemented elegantly and securely. Big Ifs.

Also, documents wont *automatically* be rights-protected. You'll still be
able to create a document that can be read cross-platform and
backwards-compatible. But you'll now also have the option to create a
rights-protected document that only can be opened by those people you want
to open it ... provided they have Office 2003 for Windows. (Hey, you didn't
expect Microsoft to add such a highly requested feature without making it
financially beneficial for themselves, did you? :-)

--
Beth Rosengard
Mac MVP

Mac Word FAQ: <http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/WordMac/index.htm>
Entourage Help Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/toc.html>

On 2003/9/3 11:00 AM, "Charles Dyer" <charlesd[at]newsguy.com> wrote:

> <http://news.com.com/2100-1012_3-5069246.html?tag=fd_lede1_hed>
>
> They can't be serious.

The ability to control modification, copying and even printing would be
quite valuable in many commercial settings. The real question is how much
of Bill Gates' infrastructure do you have to use in order to get this
functionality? I would be reluctant to base my security on .net .

On 9/3/03 12:06 PM, in article BB7B5FA1.293CB%bethrosengard[at]earthlink.net,
"Beth Rosengard" <bethrosengard[at]earthlink.net> wrote:

> On 9/3/03 8:28 AM, in article
> jemcgimpsey-C4BEA4.09284003092003[at]msnews.microsoft.com, "J.E. McGimpsey"
> <jemcgimpsey[at]mvps.org> wrote:
>
>> In article <0001HW.BB7B6C42007709DDF0407600[at]enews.newsguy.com>,
>> Charles Dyer <charlesd[at]newsguy.com> wrote:
>>
>>> They can't be serious.
>>
>> Oh, but they are - and a certain subset of MS customers (mostly
>> large corporations who buy thousands of licenses at a time) are
>> clamoring for it. This has been announced for months now...
>>
>> However, since it requires Server2003 to implement, a lot of their
>> clients won't be able, or inclined, to use it. It will be great for
>> internal corporate documents, and for distribution of sensitive
>> documents to consultants and other outside workers.
>>
>> That is if it's implemented elegantly and securely. Big Ifs.
>
> Also, documents wont *automatically* be rights-protected. You'll still be
> able to create a document that can be read cross-platform and
> backwards-compatible. But you'll now also have the option to create a
> rights-protected document that only can be opened by those people you want
> to open it ... provided they have Office 2003 for Windows. (Hey, you didn't
> expect Microsoft to add such a highly requested feature without making it
> financially beneficial for themselves, did you? :-)
The issue is not "rights protection" - I think all would agree that being
able to protect your document from alteration is a generally good thing.
The issue is that when used, it can only function with MS products. That
has NOTHING to do with protecting my work product, and EVERYTHING to do with
making sure that I have to buy MS products if I want to open and read a
document created on an MS product. IMHO, "rights protection" is the Trojan
Horse, inside of which rides the real enemy - monopolistic control of the
product marketplace...

Thats why we have Acrobat. I trust Adobe a lot more than MS and its already
the standard. PDFs and their security works just fine on Mac, PC and Linux.
We use it for all the necessary legal and restricted documents.
H

"Robert L. Haar" <rlhaar[at]comcast.net> wrote in message
news:BB7C0143.46528%rlhaar[at]comcast.net...
> On 2003/9/3 11:00 AM, "Charles Dyer" <charlesd[at]newsguy.com> wrote:
>
> > <http://news.com.com/2100-1012_3-5069246.html?tag=fd_lede1_hed>
> >
> > They can't be serious.
>
> The ability to control modification, copying and even printing would be
> quite valuable in many commercial settings. The real question is how much
> of Bill Gates' infrastructure do you have to use in order to get this
> functionality? I would be reluctant to base my security on .net .
>

> Thats why we have Acrobat. I trust Adobe a lot more than MS and its
already
> the standard. PDFs and their security works just fine on Mac, PC and
Linux.
> We use it for all the necessary legal and restricted documents.

I like PDF too. A lot. It was one of those ideas that just seemed right
from the first time I read about it. I've been using it since version 2 or
so.

But in all fairness, their security isn't the greatest, and if you need to
do time-limited documents or make documents accessible only to a group of
users who've been authenticated via some sort of log-in, or limit printing
to x-times-only, or any of a host of other potentially very useful things,
you're either out of luck or shopping for some fairly high-priced add'l
software.



> H
>
> "Robert L. Haar" <rlhaar[at]comcast.net> wrote in message
> news:BB7C0143.46528%rlhaar[at]comcast.net...
> > On 2003/9/3 11:00 AM, "Charles Dyer" <charlesd[at]newsguy.com> wrote:
> >
> > > <http://news.com.com/2100-1012_3-5069246.html?tag=fd_lede1_hed>
> > >
> > > They can't be serious.
> >
> > The ability to control modification, copying and even printing would be
> > quite valuable in many commercial settings. The real question is how
much
> > of Bill Gates' infrastructure do you have to use in order to get this
> > functionality? I would be reluctant to base my security on .net .
> >
>
>

On 9/4/03 10:44 AM, in article BB7C1128.188C%gbussey[at]nc.rr.com, "George
Bussey" <gbussey[at]nc.rr.com> wrote:

> IMHO, "rights protection" is the Trojan
> Horse, inside of which rides the real enemy - monopolistic control of the
> product marketplace...

If the IRM tools must be specifically implemented to set up the security,
then I think this is overstating the case. If the mere fact that a document
is created in Office X via a server automatically creates a file that can
*only* be accessed with another MS product, then you may have a point; but
Microsoft will also have cut its own throat. Even if the folks in Redmond
may suffer from residence in a corporate ivory tower, other businesses
realize that they absolutely *must* be able to handle materials sent and
received from a variety of platforms or they will lose customers. If they
believe for a single instant that this new version of Office will in any way
damage the health of their commerce, they will stay away from it in droves.

Cheers,

Gene van Troyer