Software License Management Solutions – a Buyers Guide
Whether you are in the process of selecting your first Software Licensing Solution or looking to change supplier there are a number of issues that should be taken into account when selecting a vendor.
Resilience
There are few experiences which will annoy your customer more than finding themselves locked out of software which they have legitimately purchased. Make sure the licensing solution you deploy does not fail when you end user upgrades their hardware. Ensure your licensing solution will survive Windows upgrades, disk reformats and registry changes.
End-user installation experience
How will your end user feel if, having purchased your software, they are unable to activate it? You need to choose a software licensing solution that offers an easy and robust method of end user activation. Better still, look for a solution that offers a choice of activation methods: internet, web based, phone and email methods
Ease of deployment
In today’s software industry time to market is critical. You don’t want to find yourself adding days or weeks to your development timeline to allow for deployment and integration of your copy protection solution. Before you buy find out just how easy the licensing solution is to deploy, and how much development time will be required for integration.
Portability
How important is it is portability for your end users? In some parts of the software market this is now a critical issue. Does your intended licensing solution make it easy for you customer to move between PCs using USB drives or web-based license storage, move licenses using a LAN Server and your Intranet Mapped Drives, move licenses using Portable Hard Drives and Zip type Drives, move and return licenses to a hosted activation server or PCs without using any media, with a single click? In choosing your software licensing solution it is going to be crucial that you understand how important these options are to your customer base.
Ease of License Control
How easy does your proposed licensing system make it for your to control end user installations of your software. Does the solution offer “Proof of Removal” tools to verify the validity of refund requests?
Concurrent Licensing
End users are demanding more flexibility in licensing options. The concurrent user model is extremely popular now. Does your chosen software licensing management solution support this licensing model? Does it facilitate work on PCs that have been locked down by the administrator?
Feature Controls
Does you intended software licensing system allow you to manipulate individual code modules, switching features on and off so that you can offer different “versions” of your product – say “basic”, “standard” and “premium”, each with different feature sets, using the same code?
Comprehensive platform support
What versions of windows do your customers use? Are all of your customers Windows users, or to some of them use Macs? Your chosen copy protection software should support all Windows versions, Mac and a wide range of development platform support.
Pricing
Many software licensing solutions providers price their services on a “royalty” model. This means that you will be charged a % of your annual turnover for software licensing services. Whilst this might seem like an attractive option when you are a small business with low turnover, think about how this pricing model will impact on your business as it grows. Royalty-free licensing enables you to maintain the same copy protection tools as your software becomes more successful without incurring financial penalties.
Guarantee
If your chosen software licensing provider doesn’t offer a no quibble money back guarantee perhaps you need to ask yourself why? Don’t be caught out by software that doesn’t deliver on its promises. Get a money-back guarantee to show you how confident your vendor is in its software, and to reduce your financial risk.
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