Category: Publishing & media (Page 52 of 52)

One of the great things about the revamped Gilbane.com web site is that the current and back issues of the report are now available for free. I say this as one of the current editors, but I also say it as a long-time reader and fan of the newsletter. There are some top-notch articles among the back issues, so I thought I would occasionally point to some of the articles, briefly extract them, and suggest the rest for further reading.
The first one I would like to higlight is a recent article, written by Glen Secor. Glen wrote our most recent article about DRM, Compliance: Make “DRM” A Part of the Solution.

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Bill Trippe’s post on January 04, 2005, “ECM and Business Process Management,” and the discussion emerging from Bill Zoellick’s post on January 08, 2005, “Sarbanes-Oxley: Too Narrow?” (especially comment by Glen Secor) make me think about the issue of DRM transactional infrastructure. Glen Secor’s comment, especially, while framing the compliance issue more usefully in regard to effective implementation strategies, also helps highlight the significant challenge ahead for DRM (or, in Glen’s usage, ERM, for enterprise rights/[business]rules management).

When the scope of integration becomes as wide as Glen argues it must, it seems to me that the DRM infrastructure requires ubiquity. After all, what we’re talking about is governing content not just between and among departments within an enterprise, but also among partners, suppliers, regulators, and a dozen other categories of participant that aren’t necessarily easily anticipated. The good news is that the DRM approach to security, compliance, and business process integration of content is theoretically flexible and applicable—arguably the best single strategy to show up to date. The bad news may be that theory will move to practice only when a sufficient DRM transactional infrastructure emerges.

But what is a sufficient DRM infrastructure? At best it would be one or a number of trusted environments that provide ubiquitous business rule transaction management common to all participants, so that enterprises could concentrate on defining and associating the business rules needed with all types of content. Since DRM platforms must not only accept and manage rules associated with content, but handle financial transactions and regulatory demands (among other things), and since the advantages of electronic commerce brings with it fast-changing relationships and conditions, the best solution is to use a DRM system in which all others can and will participate.

There are reasons for hope, albeit, perhaps, not in regard to a quick-to-emerge DRM ubiquitous infrastructure. XML-based common meta-data structures provide portability and platform independence to a large degree, and there have been some early efforts toward defining DRM meta-data with XML (ContentGuard’s XrML being the best known, but hardly the only effort). In short, the general industry trend toward abstracting meta-data above platforms means that DRM in the enterprise already has some applicable structure. However, apart from some limited examples—Authentica and Adobe come to mind—there’s still not much in the way of DRM “editorial interfaces” (i.e., rules definition and association) for content management. Fortunately, there’s little barrier to the creation and improvement of such interfaces, and preferably within CM platforms themselves.

But the question remains: is widespread compliance, security, and business processes associated with content likely without a general infrastructure such as the “Trusted Environment” on the Intertrust model? There are plenty of small- and mid-sized companies that won’t be able to afford particular DRM solutions that are not generally addressable. There is a great amount of work left to do to bring DRM into the enterprise, and while some pieces of the puzzle are in place or on their way, I wonder if the lack of working generalized trust environments remains the missing necessary piece for all sorts of “content governance” implementations.

Bill Trippe’s post on January 04, 2005, “ECM and Business Process Management,” and the discussion emerging from Bill Zoellick’s post on January 08, 2005, “Sarbanes-Oxley: Too Narrow?” (especially comment by Glen Secor) make me think about the issue of DRM transactional infrastructure. Glen Secor’s comment, especially, while framing the compliance issue more usefully in regard to effective implementation strategies, also helps highlight the significant challenge ahead for DRM (or, in Glen’s usage, ERM, for enterprise rights/[business]rules management).

When the scope of integration becomes as wide as Glen argues it must, it seems to me that the DRM infrastructure requires ubiquity. After all, what we’re talking about is governing content not just between and among departments within an enterprise, but also among partners, suppliers, regulators, and a dozen other categories of participant that aren’t necessarily easily anticipated. The good news is that the DRM approach to security, compliance, and business process integration of content is theoretically flexible and applicable—arguably the best single strategy to show up to date. The bad news may be that theory will move to practice only when a sufficient DRM transactional infrastructure emerges.

But what is a sufficient DRM infrastructure? At best it would be one or a number of trusted environments that provide ubiquitous business rule transaction management common to all participants, so that enterprises could concentrate on defining and associating the business rules needed with all types of content. Since DRM platforms must not only accept and manage rules associated with content, but handle financial transactions and regulatory demands (among other things), and since the advantages of electronic commerce brings with it fast-changing relationships and conditions, the best solution is to use a DRM system in which all others can and will participate.

There are reasons for hope, albeit, perhaps, not in regard to a quick-to-emerge DRM ubiquitous infrastructure. XML-based common meta-data structures provide portability and platform independence to a large degree, and there have been some early efforts toward defining DRM meta-data with XML (ContentGuard’s XrML being the best known, but hardly the only effort). In short, the general industry trend toward abstracting meta-data above platforms means that DRM in the enterprise already has some applicable structure.

However, apart from some limited examples—Authentica and Adobe come to mind—there’s still not much in the way of DRM “editorial interfaces” (i.e., rules definition and association) for content management. Fortunately, there’s little barrier to the creation and improvement of such interfaces, and preferably within CM platforms themselves.

But the question remains: is widespread compliance, security, and business processes associated with content likely without a general infrastructure such as the “Trusted Environment” on the Intertrust model? There are plenty of small- and mid-sized companies that won’t be able to afford particular DRM solutions that are not generally addressable. There is a great amount of work left to do to bring DRM into the enterprise, and while some pieces of the puzzle are in place or on their way, I wonder if the lack of working generalized trust environments remains the missing necessary piece for all sorts of “content governance” implementations.

Ektron announced it will add RSS syndication as a new addition to Ektron CMS300 and CMS200. With Ektron’s RSS capabilities, organizations can syndicate content from a CMS200- or CMS300-empowered Web site to any RSS-aware Web site, program or content aggregator. The site owner simply gives individuals the opportunity to opt in to their RSS feed. Individuals are alerted when new content is posted. Within Ektron CMS200 or 300, the site owner identifies the specific content to be syndicated. The system dynamically creates RSS documents as end-users publish specified content. www.ektron.com

Adobe Systems announced the immediate availability of the Adobe Acrobat 6.0 product line. Adobe also announced the immediate availability of Adobe Reader 6.0 software, an upgraded and re-named version of the widely distributed, free Acrobat Reader. Acrobat 6.0 Professional and Acrobat 6.0 Standard for Windows 98 Second Edition (Acrobat 6.0 Standard only), Windows NT Workstation 4.0 (with service pack 6), Windows 2000 Professional (with service pack 2), Windows XP Home, Professional and Tablet PC Editions, and Mac OS X v10.2.2, are immediately available in English. French and German language versions are expected to ship the first week of June and Japanese language versions are expected to ship in early July. Acrobat 6.0 Professional has an estimated street price of US$449. Registered users of Acrobat 4.0 and Acrobat 5.0 can upgrade to Acrobat 6.0 Professional for an estimated street price of US$149. Acrobat 6.0 Standard has an estimated street price of US$299. Registered users of Acrobat 4.0 and Acrobat 5.0 can upgrade to Acrobat 6.0 Standard for an estimated street price of US$99. The products also are available through Adobe’s licensing programs. Acrobat Elements is immediately available for Windows 98 Second Edition, Windows NT Workstation 4.0 (with service pack 6), Windows 2000 Professional (with service pack 2), and Windows XP Home, Professional and Tablet PC Editions. The product, available exclusively through Adobe’s licensing programs, begins at US$28 per seat for a 1,000 seat license. www.adobe.com/products/acrobat