27 Apr 2009

Liquid Machines extends Microsoft collaboration

Liquid Machines, which provides enterprise rights management (ERM) solutions to prevent data theft, has announced the extension of its collaboration with Microsoft.

The company, which recently announced a deal to integrate McAfee's data loss prevention technology into its ERM, has unveiled support for the Microsoft Active Directory (MAD) Federation Services.

When used with MAD Rights Management Services and the firm's own Document Control client software it enables users to securely share intellectual property with external users.

According to Liquid Machines, the support also allows information to be regulated across more than 400 file formats with suppliers and customers and shared externally by leveraging the web-based, collaborative features of Microsoft SharePoint.

Eric Ouellet, research vice president at sector analyst Gartner, says authentication and identity management are two of the main issues with sharing rights-protected content outside of an organisation.

"Integrated federated identity and rights management systems simplify the provisioning of users into policy, enabling external trusted third parties to securely share and persistently protect information," he comments.