Dreamer,
I suggest you get a copy of HP's "Trusted Computing Platforms", edited by Siani Pearson of their Trusted e-Services Lab. It is basically an executive summary of TPM technology written for people in your very situation. As far as benefits are concerned they are broken down into short, intermediate and long term:
1) Short term benefits are primarily "Protected Storage" Functions which will protect the confidentiality of data on hard disks in a way that is fundamentally more secure than pure software solutions.
2) Intermediate benefits will "probably involve the measurement of integrity metrics relating to the software environment on the platform (the PC, for example), for use by the platform. "Customers will then be able to protect their sensitive dta against hacker scripts by automatically preventing access to data if unauthorized programs are executed."
3) Long-term benefits involve the reporting of integrity metrics relating to the software environment on the platform, for use by third parties. This requires additional PKI support, whether restricted to a corporation or extended across organizational boundaries. This allows a remote party to verify the software environment in a TCPA platform before sending data to that platform. This increased confidence in the software state promotes higher levels of trust when interacting with that party.
"Trusted Platforms can help create better consumer confidence in several ways, including the following:
*Enhanced security using hardware
*Feedback about trust to the user
*A technological foundation for privacy
*Trustworthy digital signature"
All of this is pretty much verbatim from HP's TCP book. Basically, it is laying the groundwork for the development of trust in a computing platform which will become more and more nuanced over time. But even the immediate benefits for a large corporation as you describe will be far greater than PGP.
Svenm
