Mainstream DRM still a ways down the road

It seems like a few weeks ago since we did our “Managing digital rights” (or 10 things you should know about controlling corporate content) piece, but six months have now been put in the books. What better time for an update? I recently caught up with Paul Rettig, director of common content development at IBM, to get an update on Big Blue’s DRM product development. Rettig says IBM is in “early beta” testing with a handful of customers using the company’s middleware tools to provide digital rights management protection to a range of content types. There’s been a lot of hand holding on IBM’s part and feedback on the part of the customer.

What’s been the customer response?

“We’re confirming the strategy and are finding the people are looking at this not as immediate need but more of an over-the-horizon type of need. DRM is something that is maturing. It is on people’s list, but not on the list of things they had to solve yesterday.”

When will see product in the mainstream market?

“There’s no defined schedule with the product. We’ve got the working code and doing the early interactions with the customers, but there’s no time table on general availability. It is not an immediate kind of thing. It will have time to mature in the labs before we put it out.”

So don’t expect a full suite of DRM tools and technology from IBM for Christmas 2003.