Microsoft DRM : Mobile Onto Cross Platform DRM!!

(Via The feature.com) There's been no resolution yet of the OMA DRM standoff that threatens the widespread adoption of the technology that was supposed to unite the mobile phone and the PC, letting content be delivered across either channel and played back on either type of device. Microsoft's PlaysForSure DRM - which works across PCs, portable audio and video players, and MS-powered PDAs and mobile phones - has been adopted by a number of music services, including Napster, Yahoo and Real, and now TiVo is touting the capability of its TiVoToGo service to sync video to portable media players and mobile devices. TiVo users can now send video from their DVR to their Windows PC, and then pass it on to a mobile device - something simplified by a consistent DRM across both platforms.
In today's media environment, DRM is a necessary evil. But to integrate mobile devices with existing services like TiVo, or licensed music services, without DRM, no content providers would get on board.When the DRM for mobile devices is the same as the DRM on the desktop - Cool things can flourish. There's been lots of talk before about the impending move to mobile personal media, and that will be based on integration of mobile devices with current technologies. It's a lot more exciting when accessing media on a mobile device isn't an end in itself, but just a part of being able to access that media anytime, anywhere, on whatever type of device you want. Microsoft looks like it's building towards that type of environment with its DRM, whereas OMA's stuck in the starting gate. It's becoming more and more likely that some alternate DRM technology will have to step into the gap for mobile handsets. It could be Microsoft's which is already included on its smartphones and Pocket PCs. Surely the company's got a strategy for this space.