Flexera Enables Flexible Software Licensing Models

Now comes a new model of tracking and managing software licenses that relies on an offering from Flexera to dynamically track usage of enterprise software so that customers can be billed based on how much of the software they use, rather than the number of licenses they own.

Flexera today announced the latest version of its Flexnet Manager for Engineering Applications and signaled its intent to expand its offerings into a broader array of back-office application suites by acquiring HONICO Software, a company that makes license management software for tracking and monitoring SAP software.

According to company officials, Flexera software can be used to create a metering system that allows software publishers to bill customers based on how much the software is actually used. Software vendors are usually convinced that end users are getting more value out of their software than a model based on the number of licenses consumed would indicate. Customers, conversely, argue that most of the licenses they buy are never invoked, so all too often they wind up paying for software licenses they never use.

A recent survey of software vendors conducted by Flexera, which also makes the software that publishers use to manage the licensing process, found that in 2011 about 35 percent of the software publishers surveyed plan to offer a usage-based licensing option.

In general, a few software vendors have been at the forefront of usage-based licensing models, but tracking that usage on a practical level has proven to be problematic. Flexera says it can keep track of usage of any software title where the publisher already uses their license management software, or where the IT organization has deployed Flexera’s license management software.

In either scenario, company officials said that their technology will allow customers and software publishers to for the first time have a “fact-based” discussion about usage, which is only becoming more difficult to track as new technologies such as virtualization are introduced into the enterprise.

In fact, because virtualization makes selling software based on the number of processors used problematic, Flexera officials expect to see more software vendors than ever trying to move customers over to a usage-based licensing model for software.