Barge, You write: "WAVE is a Platform/Interoperable/OS play, and only secondarily a services/application play."
Could you please tell me what you that concretely means to you? Being a "platform/interoperable/OS" play doesn't mean much to me unless it translates into revenues. My understanding is that Wave has a great deal of IP, some of which is being licensed by companies such as Intel and NSM for a relatively small fee. Wave management has repeatedly made clear that the business plan provides for the majority of profits to come from the licensing, on a per seat basis, of premium software which includes/will include key management. Trusted third party attestation, I believe, is a key component of that key management. Enterprises may pay their $20 a seat for KTM alone, but I don't think a large percentage of individual consumers will pony up for just KTM, or for security alone (I understand that many people may not agree with those assumptions). SKS stated in a previous CC that Wave did not intend to "levy a tax on trusted computing" and that Wave would earn their fees by providing a service. I took this to mean, at least in the case of consumers, that TTP attestation would be the chief means of Wave to realize value for their services. If valuable content can be downloaded safely with direct anonymous attestation, instead of TTP attestation, is there not the risk that this market segment would elude Wave's grasp? And if that is the case, what can Wave do to realize revenues in that space instead (without "taxing the trusted computing arena")?
I believe ESC software may still be necessary for the consumer segment as it will be necessary for TPM management and the consumer will need to pay something for that software, but I hardly think it will command the same kind of fees that AIK management would.
I hope this isn't kicking a dead horse, but up until DAA I was pretty confident that Wave had a workable business plan that translated into a very nice revenue stream. It wasn't the Petermeter, but it still worked out to a lot of $'s. If we lose attestation in the computer arena our revenue base will shrink further, IMHO.
I'd look forward to anybody's thoughts/alternatives on this issue.
Svenm
AI
