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Visual Collaboration Firm Shows Way to Market Adjustment and Better Product Monetization

By Peter Scott, TMCnet Contributor

Businesses need to know when the market is changing. And for Prysm, a visual collaboration company based in San Jose, Calif., the winds of change definitely were blowing.

The company was a display and hardware firm, but the cloud and the software-as-a-service trend obviously was the future of the industry. Prysm recognized the need to change or they would find themselves left behind.

The solution was a gradual shift to a software-as-a-service model, shifting its portfolio and offering additional ways to monetize its intellectual property.

To help with the process, Prysm brought in Flexera Software, a leading software monetization firm that helps developers expand their licensing and rights management systems and stay nimble.

Flexera helped Prysm make the jump to a subscription model, usage-based licensing, and flexible billing that includes per-user and per-pool billing. The company helped Prysm with both implementation assistance and practical guidance based on its years of experience with various licensing models, according to an infographic about the partnership.

One of the reasons that Prysm decided to go with Flexera for the transition was the field-hardened libraries that Flexera could offer the company; these libraries made it much easier for Prysm to both roll out new licensing schemes and also integrate the new entitlement system with their back-office systems.

The company liked that Flexera’s software interfaced directly with Salesforce and Netsuite, two platforms used by Prysm.

Overall, the transition has gone smoothly. Prysm has moved from a hardware-centric perpetual licensing model to a new software-centric model that allows the company to charge by user, by feature type, or by consumption. This range helps Prysm both adapt to the changing needs of its customer base and the market overall, and it has introduced new monetization opportunities for the firm’s existing intellectual property.

Sometimes change can be good.