On
9 January 2001 it was announced that Autodesk had signed up for the
deployment of GLOBEtrotter Software’s flagship electronic
licensing technology, FLEXlm.
With the help of Rich Mirabella, Vice
President
of GLOBEtrotter, we take a look at a selection of the
opportunities that this and related technologies present for vendors
and end-users.
| Predictions
According to industry
analysts IDC, over 50% of software revenue will be delivered
using electronic licensing by 2003, and virtually all
software revenues will be derived from this technology by
2008. GLOBEtrotter
is the market leader in this field, with over 2,000 software
publishers using FLEXlm.
Benefits
for vendors and users
The
key benefits for vendors therefore are the ability to ensure
that users stay within their licensing agreements, and to
establish variable pricing policies according to the
frequency of software usage.
Rich
Mirabella, points out that the benefits are not one-way:
“Electronic licensing will improve business efficiency for
both vendor and end-user.
Vendors will be able to price their |
What
does FLEXlm electronic licensing software provide?
- Electronic Software Distribution (ESD) via the Internet,
CD or Floppy;
- Real-time monitoring or enforcement of software
license compliance;
- Support for licensing models including
try-before-you-buy, concurrent, site, node-locked, product
suite, named-user and pay-per-use. |
| software
so that less frequent users get charged a lower cost than
intensive users.
This will make it much easier for customers to give
all employees in the company access to a package, because
payment will be more closely related to the use made of the
product.
Many large companies who buy software are actually
pressurising vendors to use FLEXlm.” |
“A
company will operate most efficiently if everyone has access to the
same software so that all data is compatible etc,” continues
Rich.
“Being charged the classic licensing cost per seat is a
disincentive for a company to allow everyone this access.
However, electronic licensing enables customers to buy rights
to use software quite widely, and yet stay in compliance with
licensing rights/the law.”
CAT appeal
Autodesk
joins a growing band of computer-aided technology vendors who have
opted for GLOBEtrotter’s electronic license management solutions,
including Cadence, Mentor Graphics, Synopsys and Unigraphics
Solutions. The high
cost of software licenses in this area makes this license technology
particularly suited to such vendors.
It provides the ability to attract infrequent users of their
software who were previously deterred by cost, while making the
heavy users pay more. The
pay-per-use licensing method also appeals to users in heavily
project based fields.
Electronic
Software Billing (ESB)
GLOBEtrotter
has also introduced FLEXbill, a solution for retrospective billing
of software use.
“FLEXbill lets people use software beyond the
rights they have purchased, but they are billed after they have used
it, whether weekly, monthly or in perpetuity,” explains Rich.
“This means that customers do not have to forecast their
needs.
This removes administration and planning burdens on end-user
companies.”
| "The
driving force for ESB is the customer more than the vendors, because
the vendors are in a riskier situation.
The flexible approach means that they have to work on
speculation about whether a product will be used and how much.
However, we have found that the rate actually increases, and
the customer uses it more than they otherwise might have done.
ESB allows vendors to sell licenses like an airline, using
the differential of who’s price sensitive and who is not.”
|
"ESB allows vendors to sell licenses like an airline, using
the differential of who’s price sensitive and who is not.”
|
| |
The
future
“ESB
will play a huge roll in the future of electronic licensing, because
it is much more natural for customers to use software as and when
they need it and pay for it later than trying to forecast future
needs,” says
Rich Mirabella. ”This is a healthier model for the industry as
a whole as I predict that software companies will be able to save
money by not focusing on selling so much, and change their attention
to increasing their customer support.”
| We can also expect
to see further development of the concept of license
borrowing, ie borrowing a licence from the server for a
certain period, for example to work on a notebook computer
for example.
Conclusion
“The
most important step in the spread of electronic software
licensing in the short term is to get people to think
differently about the way they do business,” says
Rich.
“PTC
for example has an on-line store whereby customers who have
made an agreement to do so in advance can purchase extra
licenses on-line as and when they need them.”
Software
vendors are rapidly appreciating the need to adopt new
methods of packaging, offering and supporting their
products; electronic licensing is playing a vital role in
the change from software sold as a defined package, to one
delivered as a flexible service. |
GLOBEtrotter
Software Inc provides Electronic Commerce for
software products and services for software publishers,
customers and distribution channels. GLOBEtrotter's products
span the areas of Electronic Software Distribution,
electronic licensing, license management, software asset
management and the distribution of electronic licenses
through distribution channels. |
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around the world would prefer to use/license your products and
services?
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