Re: Microsoft Metro vs. Acrobat <b9WdnTRBpfi96TzZnZ2dnUVZ_sGdnZ2d@comcast.com> <20060627201825.2d6a319d.hilse@web.de>

At Tue, 27 Jun 2006 21:41:27 -0400 "Bill" <nospam@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

As a business user, I'm just concerned with "does it work?". Any password-protected PDF
document can be broken regardless of whatever plug-ins you use (even the ones listed in
PDFZone), which is one reason why Acrobat Web Buy never really took off. Microsoft
Reader suffered the same fate - I think both formats were broken by some outfit in
Russia.

Microsoft Metro will have real DRM built right in. Personally, while I don't share
Hans-Werner's corporate bigotry, I also don't care who makes it, as long as it works.

Really, it doesn't take a genius to see this coming. eBooks has been a terrific
potential market for the web - the business case is obvious - but we haven't been able
to find a RELIABLE reader acceptable to consumers that will prevent unauthorized reading
(cracking an unknown password) or unauthorized duplication (reproducing/extracting a
document when you have the password). This is a vastly untapped market hole as big as
the Holland Tunnel.

The big down side question: will Microsoft provide a version of the
reader for Linux? Probably not. This would mean that people like me
who use only Linux won't have access to materials in this format.

Oh, "copy protection" has never worked in the past -- I see no real
reason for this system to really work any better. The only realistic
way to prevent 'piracy' is to provide the original product at a low
enough cost to make piracy uneconomical. Yes, that means that the eBook
business is never really going to be hugely profitable unless and until
it manages to scale up into a large enough volume (which it can at low
cost). This is not dependent on any sort of copy protection scheme.


Bill.






--
Robert Heller -- 978-544-6933
Deepwoods Software -- Linux Installation and Administration
http://www.deepsoft.com/ -- Web Hosting, with CGI and Database
heller@xxxxxxxxxxxx -- Contract Programming: C/C++, Tcl/Tk

.

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