Where is Enterprise Digital Rights Management Going?
[Blogger: Trent Henry]Burton Group has long covered enterprise digital rights management (known varyingly as ERM or E-DRM). Our most recent report on E-DRM describes the technology as “driving security to the data.” Similar to consumer DRM schemes that protect Windows media or Apple iTunes content, E-DRM uses cryptography and fine-grained policies to limit what a user can do with data. Unlike consumer media, however, E-DRM is used exclusively by enterprises to protect corporate data and is typically targeted at word processing files, spreadsheets, email, and related content. Here in Prague at Burton Group’s Catalyst Conference, many of our security talks have been geared around the trend of information-centric security. As a result, several attendees have approached me to ask, “Where is E-DRM going?” Good question, but a hard one, because even Burton Group is of a mixed mind on the topic. On one hand, we see E-DRM as software-based technologies whose consumer counterparts have suffered