Microsoft is aggressively pursuing digital rights management while simultaneously raising the cost of their software and systems. TCPA based computers are already on the market, and over the next two years this technology will have more and more impact on how consumers can use their computers. Consumers will buy TCPA. They will buy it because they are being told that it protects them from viruses and hackers. However, when the DRM capabilities of this technology begin to rear their heads, consumers will be unhappy. If consumers accept DRM with open arms this will be unprecedented. Previous efforts like DIVX failed miserably. Consumers don't choose products that limit their capabilities. As these developments occur over the next two years, their are two platforms that will present themselves as viable options. One is Apple. Apples can do pretty much anything you can do with your PC, with the same files. Apples suck less. (They are FAR from perfect, but they suck less.) They are expensive, but they also do not have DRM. Apple has clearly stated they don't believe DRM will actually work. The other is Linux. Linux as a desktop isn't THERE yet. Its still clunky. But its ALMOST there, and companies like Lindows selling desktop linux machines at Walmart are incented to get it there. I can certainly imagine the remaining rough edges being smoothed out within the next two years. So just as the Wintel platform begins telling you "I can't do that, dave." when you ask it to rip your CDs, a number of viable platform options will be reaching maturity. However, while the home user's interest in information freedom might cause a large migration to Apple and Linux in the consumer market,
the corporate IT market may be very happy with TCPA. Corporate IT has intellectual property management and system administration needs that are well met by TCPA. It allows them to deploy desktops that
their employees can't really control. Central control means consistency and compliance. If general market conditions don't improve the price advantage of linux will look very attractive to corporate buyers, but if they have leeway to make expensive capital expenditures then the large companies will buy TCPA. So the result that you may see by 2005 is a situation where most people use UNIX in the home and WINDOWS in the office. There are a couple of caveats here: 1. The government: The government could pass laws making DRM mandatory, or limiting peoples ability to emulate popular windows file formats. 2. Mozilla. Mozilla is clunky. Its bad on linux. Its worse on OSX. IE is just plain better technology. Of all of the Microsoft products that I have used over the years, I am most impressed with it, except on the Mac, where their page rendering is a generation behind the times. The web is the central part of our computing experience today, and for the forseeable future. If Mozilla doesn't improve, then these options will not be viable. Apple and the various linux vendors should invest in Mozilla's maturity. I think there are a lot of implications of this for the copyright conflict, anti-trust conflicts, internet standards, etc... What do YOU think? | 
