SOFTWARE LICENSING

Licensing Heat Taken Off Businesses with FlexNet

By Steve Anderson, Contributing TMCnet Writer

Perhaps one of the biggest problems plaguing businesses today is one of software licensing. Businesses find themselves torn, faced with a pair of equally unpalatable courses of action in terms of purchasing software. But with FlexNet Operations On Demand, businesses get a whole new set of options in terms of getting the necessary licenses for the software in their operations, and getting only what they need.

FlexNet Operations On Demand brings a load of new options to Flexera Software, which is itself a major provider of application usage management solutions. Flexera Software counts more than 80,000 customers to its credit and is ranked in the top 200 software companies out there. But Flexera's growth didn't come without a price, apparent in the sheer variety of electronic software delivery platforms, entitlement management systems and an assortment of legacy systems geared toward managing back-office functions all under one umbrella. That made for a difficult situation for Flexera Software, as the user experience was getting to be a tough path thanks to the wide variety of different systems with different licenses in play.

But when Flexera Software brought in FlexNet Operations On Demand, the picture rapidly changed. It quickly became clear that it could standardize many of its systems. Flexera settled on Salesforce.com to handle its customer relationship management systems, as well as Oracle (News - Alert) to handle much of its financial responsibilities. This consolidation, along with FlexNet Operations On Demand, gave Flexera a much simpler environment in which to operate and improved things substantially for the company.

Curtis Chang, a project manager with Flexera Software, explained how bad the system was at its worst, showing how clearly Flexera needed some kind of management in its licensing procedures. Chang described how Flexera was supporting more than 20 different systems, that would require a customer to go through several different systems and processes just to access the downloads that the customer should have been able to proceed directly to.

Software licensing is a difficult thing to deal with for many companies. Usually faced with two bad choices, businesses are left to decide which is the lesser of two evils. Some companies buy just as many licenses as they need at the time, leaving them with little in the way of flexibility down the road. If a company suddenly increases hiring, or needs the extra room for more users, getting more licenses can be difficult and costly. Plus, it leaves a company vulnerable to a “true-up” in which the exact number of users must be disclosed and further licenses, where necessary, must be purchased. In a bid to prevent that, some companies are buying too many licenses, and seeing money go to waste as licenses go unused, and cannot be resold in many circumstances.

But with proper license management—not to mention a growing interest in subscription-based software platforms—the picture can look much better, as Flexera Software discovered with FlexNet Operations On Demand.