Traxon Protects its IP and Offers Flexible Licensing Using SafeNet's MaxMicro Dongle
December 10, 2012
By Mae Kowalke, TMCnet Contributor
Piracy and reverse-engineering are threats facing all software developers. This is as true for those developing for the mass market as it is for a company like specialized lighting solutions provider Traxon Technologies.
The company is an end-to-end solutions provider that creates hardware and software that brings video and color fading effects to large LED screens. Traxon produces solid-state lighting and control systems for more than 4,000 structures, including recognizable structures such as:
- The National Stadium in Poland
- The IBM (News - Alert) Executive Briefing Center in Rome
- The Christ the Redeemer Monument in Rio de Janeiro
“We are producing the control parts, the software, and the LEDs fixtures. We are providing an entire solution, from the planning to the implementation,” said Dr. Chris Loeser, director of product creation control & software at Traxon, in a recent SafeNet case study.
Part of the Traxon solution includes its Lighting Application Software Suite (LAS), which creates complex light shows. The software comes with Traxon’s own server products, but also can be purchased individually for use with other control systems.
This dynamic software is extremely unique to the industry so keeping the software safe from piracy and reverse-engineering is a top concern for the company.“Protecting the intellectual property of our software against piracy is vital to maintaining our competitive advantage,” noted Loeser.
He said Traxon needed to be sure that its software was protected from copying; if not, the IP could be comprised.
For Traxon, the solution meant SafeNet’s (News - Alert) Sentinel HASP MaxMicro key. End users needed the portability to move the software from one PC to another, so hardware-based protection was essential.“Our server PCs range in size and the MaxMicro key easily fits into them all. Even with our smaller PCs, the key barely sticks out, making it the most practical choice around,” said Loeser.
The micro dongle attaches to the Windows machines licensed to run LAS. MaxMicro comes with strong software protection, including a unique 32-bit ID number, an on-chip encryption engine and a 128-bit AES encryption algorithm, and a single key is capable of controlling more than 231 unique features. In addition, the dongle permits remote update of keys in the field.
“This was an amazingly simple implementation into our software environment,” noted Loeser, “yet it provided so much added value to our offering.”
The MaxMicro dongle not only makes it a lot harder to pirate the software, it also helped Traxon offer a better licensing model to its customers.
Flexible software packages with varying degrees of features is important to Traxon’s customers, but prior to implementing SafeNet’s MaxMicro solution Traxon was limited to offering customers packages with a predefined set of features. MaxMicro allows Traxon to offer a feature-based licensing model in which customers can select the features they need using a simple credit-based system.
Loeser notes that offering feature-based licensing has been both convenient for customers and extremely profitable for the Traxon.
“The MaxMicro key is perfect for our customers’ licensing needs. It’s easy to integrate, portable, flexible, and great for updating credits. We wouldn’t even think of moving to a different product or competitor,” concluded Loeser.
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Edited by Peter Bernstein
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