CIVILSERVE – Germany – Geotechnical calculations
The Challenge
As the exclusive distributor of a digital asset par excellence – the highly specialized geological information and engineering solutions of GGUSoftware – Civilserve had long understood the value it had to defend and protect in the products entrusted to them. A long-time and loyal user of Wibu-Systems’ technologies since the original WibuKey, Civilserve needed to level up its protection and monetization capabilities to match its customers’ demand for more flexibility and follow the upward trajectory of its business.
The Solution
In 2016, Civilserve had already introduced CmActLicenses; it was time to continue the strong partnership with Wibu-Systems and build on the step towards new, dongle-free licensing systems by taking its licensing system into the cloud. The modular scalability of CodeMeter allows Civilserve to offer its GGU-Software products with the ease of mind afforded by a system they know and appreciate, fully integrated with an online store and CodeMeter License Central for easy license management, both maintained by Wibu-Systems.
The Result
The users of Civilserve can now acquire the GGU-Software they need, scaled perfectly to match their own project needs: the complete GGU-Software geotechnical package with its 50 modules is available at their fingertips, with dongle, software, or cloud-based licenses for permanent, subscription, or even ad-hoc 10-hour use for added flexibility on the ground.
Thomas Walkemeyer
Managing Director Sales, Civilserve
”In autumn 2001, we were looking for a new method of licensing and protection against pirate copies of our GGU-Software solutions. We wanted a simple license management system for ourselves and our customers, which would protect their investment. In our search for an innovative and future-proof solution, we ultimately decided in favor of Wibu-Systems. I would like to emphasize two things, also on behalf of my partner Joerg Otto, about the Wibu-Systems team: Trust and appreciation. These are the cornerstones of a successful working relationship and have always been there to form stable foundations for our partnership.”
The Company
Civilserve is the exclusive sales partner for GGU-Software, the maker of professional environmental technology, foundation engineering, and soil mechanics software (www.ggu-software.com). Its users, civil engineers and construction industry professionals, benefit from Civilserve’s competence as an offshoot of GGU-Software in supplying them with the software they need and the training and expertise they can put to great use in their engineering projects.
Leveraging all the flexibility of CodeMeter
To grow strong, you need solid foundations: This simple rule of life applies to anything from trees to houses, and even businesses. Civil engineers, architects, and construction professionals need to understand the conditions they are given in order to realize the vision they have dreamed up. This ranges from the condition of the subsoil to geohydraulics and geodynamics, geological layers and forces, the movement of soil and water, erosion, subsidence, and the countless interactions that exist between every factor in the equation: Big data avant la lettre. Collating, processing, and visualizing all of these data points is a task far beyond the capabilities of even the most qualified civil engineers alone. This is where the dedicated software packages of GGU-Software and its exclusive distributor in Germany, Civilserve, come into play.
With no fewer than 50 individual applications and modules, the software handles everything civil engineers need for geotechnical and geohydraulic analyses in their building projects. Architectural and engineering plans and measurements and test data from the field can be fed into the system for immediate processing and visualization. The software technology and equations making this possible constitute a digital asset of enormous value, not just monetarily for their makers and distributors, but also practically for the users on the ground. In 2001, soon after Civilserve was founded as a dedicated sales partner for GGU-Software by some of the company’s engineers, the company realized that it needed a strong solution to protect and monetize this asset. It found this solution in Wibu-Systems’ original WibuKey, the start of a relationship that has been scaling up its technological and commercial capabilities ever since.
Initially, Civilserve, like any other software vendor of those times, was shipping CDs tied to a protected dongle, a WibuBox. Moving to CodeMeter in 2006, Civilserve has been closely following the evolution of this newest protection and licensing ecosystem, beginning with an integrated online shop to sell its products with licenses on CmDongles. The shop is based on the Cleverbridge platform, the all-in-one e-commerce and subscription billing solution for software, SaaS and digital goods, and is maintained by Wibu-Systems. The shop allows Civilserve to seamlessly serve an international clientele, but instead of shipping the dongles themselves, they rely on Wibu-System consolidated worldwide logistic network to fulfill their orders.
Civilserve has also gone a long way in terms of business approach: 2012 saw the introduction of both CmActLicenses and a first branching out into new licensing options in the form of rental licenses. The added flexibility allowed by such models over traditional permanent licenses was a boon for Civilserve’s users operating in a heavily project-driven industry. New subscription and time-bound licenses followed soon after, including a unique 10-hour license for ad-hoc use when and where customers needed access to specificGGU-Software for their projects.
The new decade sees this story of evolution and scalability reach a new pinnacle with the decision to first introduce new 1-year licenses in 2019 and now the move to Wibu-Systems’ all-new cloud licenses. The clients of Civilserve can now get the software they need from their familiar online shop, but with a plethora of choices at their fingertips: Permanent, time-bound, and ad-hoc single-user or network licenses, on dongles for top protection, software license files for maximum flexibility, or cloud licenses for the best of both worlds. This freedom of choice is made possible for Civilserve by Wibu-Systems with the ease and security of a fully integrated online shop and the cloud-based license management system CodeMeter License Central – and now made ready for whatever the future holds with the unparalleled scalability of Wibu-Systems’ cloud capabilities.