Safer to market: Licensing and e-commerce integrated

In our digital age, it is software that makes the world go round. Companies that used to sell hardware only are now letting software and firmware determine the feature sets of their products. The same is true for conventional software houses as well, where lifetime licenses are being replaced with pay-per-feature or subscription models. But this freedom of choice and added value for the user comes at a price: The IP and development efforts invested in the products. To monetize these investments, vendors need ways to market, manage, and enforce licenses, and not just for the initial purchase, but also for subsequent aftermarket feature activation or subscription renewals.

In addition to entitlement management and license enforcement, commercial concerns play a key role in these processes. The list of requirements from software and device manufacturers is long, as is the list of legal factors to be considered. This is where e-commerce providers like Cleverbridge, who specialize in these processes, come into their own. Cleverbridge’s features and capabilities leave little to be desired: their solution handles local payment methods around the world, regulatory compliance, and even automatic billing for license renewals.

Cleverbridge's e-commerce platform covers the commercial part of the requirements, while CodeMeter License Central is there for entitlement management and enforcement. Both systems integrate and work perfectly with each other out of the box to offer maximum added value for their users. And at the same time, both systems come with additional interfaces to link up with other systems, such as ERP and CRM. Everything is built to fit neatly into even very heterogeneous landscapes.

Combined and integrated, CodeMeter License Central and the Cleverbridge e-commerce platform automate two separate processes: Payment and billing on one side and entitlement and license enforcement on the other. The Cleverbridge e-commerce platform can call an external license engine for delivering entitlements, and CodeMeter License Central is ready to work as the endpoint for this call. A small piece of Software, the Cleverbridge Connector, maps the data fields between the Clverbridge e-commerce platform and CodeMeter License Central and builds a bridge between the two systems. The integrated solution supports multiple use cases, including the most common types:

• Entitlements with perpetual licenses
• Creating feature-based licenses
• Managing subscriptions

When a product is purchased or a subscription is renewed, the system checks that the license entitlement has been issued or updated accordingly. Simply put: The Cleverbridge platform takes care of communicating with customers, and CodeMeter License Central manages entitlement and license enforcement for the software.

In this masterclass, we will demonstrate how a user of this solution experiences the process of purchasing and working with a perpetual or subscription license through the entire lifecycle. We will also highlight the extensive data management and reporting capabilities it contains, scaling from small and medium to large enterprise vendors and integrating smoothly with ERP systems like SAP or others.

Here is the list of content we are going to cover:

• Introducing Cleverbridge
• Introducing Wibu-Systems
• License models (perpetual, feature-specific, subscription, pay-per-use, …)
• CodeMeter License Central
• Cleverbridge e-commerce platform
• Cleverbridge Connector
• Perpetual licenses and subscription licenses in action
• Interfaces for CRM and ERP systems

To better reach their customers around the globe and monetize their software effectively, B2B and B2C enterprises need an all-in-one e-commerce solution that tackles all the facets of global operations. Discover the streamlined workflow you can attain by combining CodeMeter with Cleverbridge technological universes.