In an announcement on Thursday, Microsoft and RSA - the security division of EMC - disclosed their plans of integrating RSA's data loss prevention (DLP) technology with the Windows platform - which implies an expanded technology partnership between the two around digital rights management in the enterprise.

Douglas Leland, general manager of the Identity and Security Business Group at Microsoft, said there are two parts to the announcement. On one hand, Microsoft will build RSA's DLP prevention classification into the Microsoft IT platform and future information protection products; while, on the other hand, RSA's DLP Suite 6.5 will integrate with Microsoft Active Directory Rights Management Services (AD RMS), making DLP solution "identity-aware."

Hence, the Microsoft-RSA collaboration will let organizations define central information security policies tied to employee identity or group membership, automatically identify and classify sensitive data, and be able to better protect data at the endpoints, network, and data center. As such, whenever sensitive documents are traded via Exchange or SharePoint, the ability to read only, print, or not print will be controlled automatically by the policies set by the CIO or other security officers.

Christopher Young, senior vice president of products at RSA, said that for the user, the process is transparent, happening entirely on the back end. Young added: "This technology will assist the user in such a way that they don't have to make a choice in what information they have to protect."

In the opinion of the solution providers, the integration is something for which customer demand has been high for some time. According to Eric Anderson, CTO of Netanium Network Security, a Chelmsford, Mass.-based solution provider, "This is definitely a huge step in the right direction for Microsoft."