Businesses that want to protect digital documents and email against loss and theft are predicted to dramatically increase their spending on digital rights management (DRM) software, according to Jupiter Research. Financial firms, government agencies and manufacturers, Jupiter said, will be anxious to safeguard and control the delivery of crucial documents inside and outside a company’s firewall.
DRM software helps companies to safeguard email and other digital documents from loss and theft. So far the market for DRM products has been fragmented, resulting in slow growth. However, established software giants Microsoft and Adobe are understood to be readying their arsenal of products to bring DRM into the mainstream.
According to Jupiter Research, corporate spending on DRM products is expected to reach US$278m in 2008, up from US$36m last year.
However, despite the strong growth rate, DRM spending will not reach the high levels that will be spent by companies on technologies such as virtual private networks, antivirus software and firewalls. This will be because DRM capabilities are likely to be incorporated into other technology products as part of an overall security package.
Jupiter surveyed 800 corporate IT buyers and found that almost all the businesses are mostly concerned about loss of client data or loss of proprietary financial information.
Major causes of compromised data are virus infections, unintended forwarding of emails and the loss or theft of laptop computers, mobile phones and PDAs.
Jupiter Research analyst Peter Sargent said in a statement: “Financial services, high-tech manufacturing and government sectors are expected to lead the adoption of corporate DRM solutions that facilitate secure, controlled document delivery and ensure the integrity of sensitive documents both within and beyond the corporate firewall.”
By John Kennedy
