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Flexera Software Offers Software Licensing Help, Insight

By David Sims, TMCnet Contributing Editor

If you’re going to get tips on software licensing, it’s probably a good idea to get them from an executive for an established company in the field. At least that’s one good place we’d go for such advice.

In this case, the company is Flexera, a leading software licensing company that has been around in one form or another for about 25 years. It was spun off from Macrovision in early 2008, and is located in the greater Chicago area. It sells software for application readiness, licensing, entitlement, compliance management, and enterprise license optimization, among others, according to Flexera’s Steve Schmidt, vice president of corporate development.

Earlier this year TMCnet reported that to resell and provide implementation and consulting services in the European Union and Switzerland for FlexNet Manager Suite Enterprise License Optimization products, software asset management (SAM) specialist Softline Group has joined Flexera Software’s Enterprise License Optimization Alliance partner program.

Due to his work Schmidt is attuned to changes in end-user expectations and ISVs' ability to meet those expectations, and here he shares a few pearls of wisdom he’s gleaned through his real-life experience:

“If you have only one pricing and licensing model, you don't have enough,” Schmidt writes.

The way he puts it, developers should look at ways to package and price products in the ways that users want to use them. We’re not talking about ripping up your current practices and starting over from zero. Schmidt recommends testing within certain markets and putting a bit of flexibility in your practices: “Design an offering to maximize value to the marketplace. Some of the SaaS (News - Alert) models can be applied to traditional products.”

He adds, “Add a pricing and licensing model that's subscription-based.” If you have a subscription model that’s good, whether it’s time-based or product-based, because in Schmidt’s experience, some customers prefer subscriptions because of budgeting constraints.

Another tip: “Add a pricing and licensing model that's usage-based,” to go along with your subscription-based model. There’s growing demand for it, Schmidt says, adding that from what he’s seen with customers, “16 percent now say they want it, up from 11 percent in 2009.” And the nice thing is that usage pricing can be blended with a pricing model you already have in place.

One other tip worth noting: “Increase scalability within your pricing and licensing model.” The idea is to get the customer to consume additional units of the software as needed, Schmidt explains, noting that your job, the art of what you do, is to “identify the right level of enforcement for the app.”