Sunday, July 22, 2012

Rant: DRM for PDFs

Any device, any where, any time.  That has been the credo of many technology leaders including Cisco CEO John Chambers recently as they tout mobility and BYOD.  Unfortunately Cisco doesn't follow what it preaches when it comes to its course documents.

Last week I took an online Cisco class through a training partner.  Thankfully I have a Windows side on my laptop.  Cisco's DRM (FileOpen) requires Adobe Acrobat Reader and the FileOpen plugin.  Although both are available for my Linux side, the older version of Acrobat Reader required was no longer functional with Ubuntu 12.04.  Personally I would rather have the PDFs on my iPad, but that's not an option at all.  Offline access is also not available since the DRM software phones home each time the file is opened. 

All in all, it makes me nostalgic for the 40lb stack of dead trees that Cisco used to give each student.   At least I could use those books the way I needed to for studying.