September 16, 2003
Ok, I know what you're thinking – "This
McGuire guy has totally lost it. His mind, his
credibility, my attention – he's lost it all." I hope
you're wrong. Let me start by saying that I'd be the
last guy to dream up any "end times prophesy." I believe
what Jesus said – that it is not for us to know the
times which God has set for these things to happen. And
yet, Jesus also warned us to be as wise as serpents and
as innocent as doves. When we see a company acting in a
manner so similar to what the Bible describes as the
work of the anti-Christ, we should certainly sit up and
take notice.
What am I babbling about? I'm talking about the plans
that Microsoft has for the next release of the Office
set of productivity tools.
If Microsoft has created an exceptional set of products,
it would be the Office suite: primarily Word, Excel, and
Powerpoint. The documents created by these tools have
become the lingua franca of the business world. When I
say "can you e-mail me that document?" – what I expect
to receive is a Microsoft Office document – a Word
document if it's text, an Excel spreadsheet if it's
numbers, or a Powerpoint presentation if it's a
slideshow. If you operate in the corporate world, then
you use Office.
The government is also a heavy user of Office. Visit the
Census Bureau web page and download census data as an
Excel file. Download publications in Word format from
the Small Business Administration web site. Check out
the latest Powerpoint presentations by commissioners at
the Federal Communications Commission Internet site.
I'm sure there are those who will disagree, but in
general, Microsoft came to dominate the office
productivity software market not through
anti-competitive behavior or sneaky tricks, but by
building a better spreadsheet product than Lotus, a
better word processor than WordPerfect, and a better
presentation graphics tool than Harvard Graphics.
Microsoft won the market the right way – by better
serving the needs of their customers.
However, that was a long time ago, and now that commerce
and government are dependent on these tools, Microsoft
is ready to spring the trap.
You see, up until now, you could actually create
documents in the Office formats without buying the
Microsoft products. Most competing commercial and open
source solutions could read and write Word document
files, Excel spreadsheet files, and Powerpoint
presentation files. You weren't forced to use Microsoft
products to participate in the business community or to
access information from government agencies. But that's
about to change.
Microsoft Office 2003 is hitting the street next month
featuring Microsoft's Information Rights Management (IRM),
a proprietary mechanism for securing documents.
"Securing" – as in making sure that only authorized
people can read and modify them, but also "securing" –
as in making sure that only the newest Microsoft tools
can read and write them.
At it's most innocent, this strategy is just the latest
in Microsoft's consistent brute-force approach to
"encouraging" their customers to upgrade to the latest
version of software. If any of my business partners
upgrade to Office 2003 and use any of the new features,
I will need to upgrade my systems to Office 2003. And
I'll probably need to upgrade all of my systems
simultaneously to keep documents flowing within my
company.
In the past, Microsoft has used gentler tactics, such as
switching the pricing and licensing terms overnight or
suddenly dropping support for previous versions of
software. This time, Microsoft is torpedoing the
backwards-compatibility that software vendors have
typically provided to keep their customers happy. I
guess Microsoft isn't worried about whether customers
like the company or not.
However, of course, it goes deeper. In addition to
forcing Office customers to upgrade to Office 2003 more
quickly than they may be comfortable (given Microsoft's
reputation for bug-ridden first releases), this will
also force many individuals and companies who have never
purchased Office (being able to use competing solutions)
to convert to Microsoft's product.
Even worse, to use the features in Office 2003, you'll
need to be running Windows Server 2003 Enterprise
Edition. This is not an inexpensive product (one pricing
sheet on the Microsoft website listed one small
component of this architecture at over $18,000). Many
companies have chosen to go with Linux or Unix servers
in their network, while keeping Windows on the desktop.
These Microsoft customers will now either need to
convert to Windows Server or run two sets of servers.
It's also helpful to have a very high level
understanding of how the IRM feature in Office 2003
works. This is a very complex mechanism, so I'm going to
over-simplify it to get to the bare basics. When you
create a document using Office 2003, you can specify
individuals or groups who have different levels of
access to the file. For example, some can read it.
Others can read it and modify it. To do this, you simply
specify their name or e-mail address. What really
happens is that this information gets passed to the
Windows Server Rights Management Services (RMS) system.
When the other person wants to access the document, he
must validate himself to the RMS. This is done using a
mechanism called public-key/private-key authentication.
In the Microsoft world, every human being will have a
piece of digital data to identify themselves. This piece
of data will consist of a private-key that only you will
secretly hold, and a public-key which you will give to
the government, your employer, your trading partners,
your friends – anyone with whom you want to securely
exchange information. They will use this public key to
authenticate that you really are who you claim to be.
I think you see where I'm going with this.
In the Microsoft world, if you want to use Microsoft's
products, you will have a string of bits – yes, a binary
number – assigned to you. It may not be stamped on your
forehead or on your hand, but it may as well be. If you
choose not to participate, not to receive this number,
then you will not be able to exchange information with
anyone else who does choose to use the Microsoft
products. It probably won't take long before that
includes virtually every large business, every bank,
every mortgage company, every health care facility,
every insurance company and every government
institution.
This is what scares me. The parallels to the description
in chapter 13 of the book of Revelation is downright
spooky. Listen to the Word of God: "And he causes all,
the small and the great, and the rich and the poor, and
the free men and the slave, to be given a mark on their
right hand or on their forehead, and he provides that no
one will be able to buy or sell, except the one who has
the mark, either the name of the beast or the number of
his name." (Rev 13:16-17)
Do I believe that I have special insight that the end of
the world is near and that Microsoft or Bill Gates or
Steve Ballmer is the anti-Christ? No, of course not.
Do I believe that Microsoft is acting in a dangerous and
self-condemning way and we need to be alert and proceed
with utmost caution? You bet I do.
He who has an ear, let him hear.
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