Microsoft Eyes Copy Controls

Microsoft believes that secure computing depends on digital rights management, and the company expects to get a good grip on technology to secure digital media, documents, or other content, a message from Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer reveals.

Ballmer's e-mail message, which was sent to subscribers of a periodic executive update Wednesday, does not contain groundbreaking news on the company's DRM strategy. But it does emphasize how Microsoft sees DRM as a crucial piece of its initiatives.

"Microsoft has invested more than $250 million to date in rights management technologies, and we have substantial ongoing efforts to enable a new generation of rights management that will protect a broad range of personal and commercial digital content," Ballmer wrote.

DRM Demand Grows

DRM--technologies that protect digital content and dictate how it can be shared or distributed--promises to become an increasingly lucrative market. More digital content is becoming available, and more content providers are demanding that their works be protected.

In addition to music and movies, which are ripe candidates for DRM technologies, Microsoft sees corporate content, such as e-mail and internal documents, as another realm where DRM technologies are due to take hold.

"Anyone who uses a personal computer for word processing, e-mail, data analysis, or other common purposes is creating digital content--content that if unprotected might be misused by others," Ballmer wrote.

Tools in the Works

Microsoft's flagship DRM technology is its Windows Media Digital Rights Management tool, which delivers music, media, and other content online. The company released Windows Media DRM in 1999.

Ballmer's e-mail details the line of new DRM products Microsoft has in the works, including Microsoft Windows Rights Management Services, a security service for Windows Server 2003, due out later this year. Microsoft described related security tools at its recent Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC).

Ballmer said that Microsoft is partnering with a wide range of content providers and industry vendors to grab hold of the market, adding that DRM is a crucial part of the company's Trustworthy Computing strategy.

The same day that Ballmer sent the e-mail, Microsoft grappled with its own security issues, issuing a patch for its Windows Media Player.