A cursory examination of market forces driving the use of protection profiles

Recently, there has been growing interest in and support for an international framework called the Common Criteria within the Information Assurance community. Much of the U.S. government's Information Assurance strategy for the coming years is based on the assumption of widespread acceptance of the Common Criteria and the National Information Assurance Partnership (NIAP), with positive result to follow. While one can hope that things go as planned, I would like to at least open a discussion on the market forces which may influence the results in unanticipated ways. This is not to say that the future will unfold in any particular way, but merely to caution that we should be prepared for all possible contingencies, even the undesirable ones.