Navigating Through the Gray Areas of Cloud Licensing

ISVs are facing increasing pressure to deliver SaaS solutions instead of traditional on-premise software applications. Why? Mainly, because they are responding to their customers’ preferences and investigating new business models. With increasing mobility, employees themselves are moving off premises and require more flexibility in the way they access their applications from home offices and remote locations. At the same time, SaaS solutions offer ISVs more business opportunities as well – new revenue streams, geographical expansion, and business growth, to name just a few.

Crisp Research, a brand of the European Cloud Consulting firm Cloudflight, categorized the reasons why companies were moving to the cloud:

• 65.8%: To establish new business models (SaaS)
• 59.5%: Stronger client demand
• 27.8%: Access to new markets (geographies and client groups)
• 19.0%: Technical requirements cannot be met on contemporary platforms
• 16.5%: Greater growth according to surveys and analysis
• 13.9%: Pressure from partners/integrators
• 3.88%: other

Cloudflight noted that the transition to Cloud and SaaS models for ISVs would not necessarily be an easy one, as the shift would require changes in development standards, acquisition or development of new skills and processes, and 24/7 high availability operation with different billing and procurement models. They further noted that the complexity of migrating existing applications depends on the architecture and existing license agreements where a one-size-fits-all approach would simply not be a realistic migration strategy.

This complexity is particularly true with licensing in the cloud, which can take many different shapes and sizes. Licenses can be created in the cloud, distributed through the cloud, or even used and monitored in the cloud itself. The possible scenarios multiply if one adds the many ways and places in which software can be used: on-premise or in the cloud, run by the end user, or provided as a service (SaaS) by a vendor.

Even for experienced software developers, the transition from a private environment to the public cloud can be a difficult one. Cloudflight recommends that ISVs work with an experienced service provider that can help them plan the migration and mitigate the risks along the way. For the cloud software licensing component of the migration, our CodeMeter technology is a perfect solution to lean on for our secure licensing expertise across all application deployments.

CodeMeter has all the building blocks required to implement a custom cloud licensing solution: CodeMeter License Central lets software vendors create, manage, and distribute licenses to their end users; CodeMeter Cloud Lite provides simple licensing capabilities for SaaS applications run by their vendors; CodeMeter Cloud allows ISVs to store licenses in the cloud for end users to enjoy their software wherever they want; and a license portal is the self-service solution for end users.

If you are considering moving your application to a cloud deployment, or are amid a migration, you can learn from our experience in cloud licensing. We invite you to our upcoming webinar, Optimizing Cloud Licensing: Strategies and Best Practices, where we will discuss all of the elements involved in licensing in the cloud and take an in-depth look at our CodeMeter Cloud solution. If you cannot make it, you can also register to watch the recording after the live event.