Its easy to think of software licensing and copy protection as little more than “insurance”:  a part of the business that is necessary to protect against misfortune – but doesn’t really add much to the bottom line when things are running smoothly.

This case study shows how one company has gone beyond this basic approach and leveraged it’s software license management drive both sales and customer service.

Linnsoft make market analysis software for traders and active investors.

Like many start-up ISV’s Linnsoft initially opted to develop their own licensing solution.  Founder Bill Linn explains:

Like many ISV’s in the early days we decided to develop our own solution. I have a Ph.D. in computer science, so I dusted off my cryptography books, picked the brains of a few ex-classmates who had gone on to specialize in the field and came up with a solution that was good enough for us at the time. Our software is an analysis tool and our customers will also have a subscription to a data service, with a unique password, so we piggy-backed our copy protection on to that password. This worked well enough for us for a time.

But as the company grew Linnsoft needed more from their licensing and copy protection:  they became a target for piracy, and they wanted to boost sales by offering subscription licensing.

This case study shows how they addressed these issues and went on to use their software licensing management solution to drive sales and enhance customer service.

Read the full software licensing case study here.

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