News Center

Latest News on Flexera Software and Application Usage Management

Welcome to the Flexera Software news center. Here you will find the latest news and information about our company, application usage management and our solutions.

Story Ideas

Enterprise Stories

C-Suite Focusing on Application Usage Management to Reduce Cost and Risk
C-level executives must be aware of and manage all risks that could impact the organization's finances and operations. Software counts as one of the most critical assets to any organization, as applications run all systems. Managing the software license lifecycle is an increasingly complex task – and the failure to do so properly can significantly expose a company to needless cost and risk. Major software migrations projects, like moves to the cloud and virtualization, or shifting from Windows XP to Windows 7 or 8, require tremendous resources to do so effectively and without business disruption. And failure to manage the software license lifecycle to ensure companies are buying what they need, using what they have, and remaining in compliance, can also result in unnecessary purchases and 7- and 8-figure unbudgeted expenses. As a result, the c-suites in many large organizations are increasingly green-lighting application usage management strategies to ensure software cost is managed and risk is minimized.
IT as a Service
As major trends like the "Consumerization of IT" and "Bring your Own Device" (BYOD) take root, the old model of top-down IT no longer works. Increasingly, organizations demanding flexibility and responsiveness in all areas of the business are looking for ways that IT can operate more as a service organization to internal stakeholders. To accomplish this, process and automation must replace previous highly manual tasks. Application usage management presents a powerful illustration. Previously, from acquisition to deployment to optimization to retirement – managing the software license lifecycle was highly manual, inefficient and costly, resulting in significant waste, user dissatisfaction and executive frustration. Today, through the use of Application Readiness and Software License Optimization strategies, IT organizations are able to remain responsive to the business' need to deliver mission critical applications to users when and where they need them -- efficiently, cost effectively, and without sacrificing security or control.
Shift Needed to Achieve Continual Optimization
Change is so rampant within IT that a transformation in philosophy, strategy and solution is required. Rather than managing IT projects as if an end-state is possible, organizations must accept that change is continual. Optimizing costs and efficiencies must focus therefore on continual optimization of the entire software lifecycle -- from acquisition through deployment to upgrade and retirement. Process and technology must be applied to manage continual change. To illustrate, rather than a project to ensure smooth migration from Windows XP to Windows 7, the focus should be on Application Readiness to ensure all migrations go smoothly – no matter how large or small. Rather than focusing on managing software assets to minimize non-compliance risks, companies should focus on Software License Optimization to ensure at all times they are buying what they need and using what they have. Without processes and strategies that accommodate continual change, organizations will perpetually be behind and at the mercy of the next big project requiring resources.
IT Must Walk Tightrope to Deliver Enterprise App Stores
IT is coming under increasing pressure from CEOs on down to give a more consumer-like experience to users. This is mostly commonly felt in BYOD, where employees want to connect to work through their personal devices – iPhones, iPads, etc. But it doesn't stop there – users also want to get their apps through an app store similar to iTunes. And here's where IT must walk a tightrope – delivering the experience users want but in a way that doesn't wreak havoc. Because in a corporate environment – the app store must be smarter than iTunes. It has to know which users have rights to download which apps. It must know where the app should run (on an iPhone? a virtual machine? Laptop? In a browser?) And it must know whether there's a license available – and if so, register the download to ensure license inventories remain accurate and the download doesn't throw the company out of compliance. There's a lot more to manage on the back end to ensure IT remains accountable and in control of the apps – while still giving end users the experience they want. And if IT doesn't walk that tightrope just right – balancing between user experience on one side and accountability and control on the other – the fall is difficult to recover from.

Producer Stories

Product Development Optimization
Product development teams are constantly faced with more priorities than resources. The top priority remains developing features to beat the competition and solve customer problems. Add to that the need to support new technologies such as virtualization and the cloud. Then the business wants support for new business models and licensing strategies to try to maximize revenues. All of this must be accomplished in an efficient and cost effective development framework. This requires strategies that focus limited resources on priorities such as flexible product packaging and licensing, easy product updates, modification and installation – and folding in customer experience into the development process. This requires producers to rethink their development lifecycles and build intelligence and customer data into a highly optimized process.
Software Lifecycle Experience Management Essential in a Maturing Software Marketplace
All software vendors require some form of software installation, delivery, licensing and compliance management to get their products to customers and monetize their innovations. Customers' opinions of their enterprise software is impacted at all stages of this lifecycle. At installation. During use when trying to solve a problem. When being used in a different way to solve new problems. And a negative customer experience impacts the vendor's reputation and future prospects. Software lifecycle experience management has emerged as a strategy allowing vendors to assess the software experience from the customer point of view and adjust the packaging, licensing and installation experience to maximize customer satisfaction.

Application Readiness Stories

Unprepared Companies Offering iTunes-like Experience at Their Peril
As the consumerization of IT sweeps the business landscape, IT management is under unprecedented pressure to deliver a user experience to employees similar to what they are familiar with in their personal lives. Increasingly, this means offering an "ITunes-like" experience for downloading business apps, instead of the manual, time consuming and bureaucratic processes most companies have established. Users want to be able to sign onto their portal and download the apps they want, when they want them, where they want to use them. The challenge is that without back office mechanisms for managing and tracking the software licenses accessed, and ensuring that business rules are observed concerning who can access which applications and for what purposes – cost and risk abound. Most organizations cannot surrender accountability and control of mission critical apps – just to create a better employee experience. So, smart organizations are building back-end controls into their enterprise app stores to ensure they can remain vigilant over software costs, compliance and deployment best practices – while still providing employees the user experience they crave.
Enterprise App Stores are Here – But with a Twist
With the exploding success of the Apple, Android App and now Microsoft app stores (Apple is poised to reach 1 million apps by year's end), it is not surprising that the conversation is turning to the enterprise, where pundits are asking if the same app store success can be achieved in a B to B environment. Some unique challenges make public, consumer-facing app stores a challenge to put to enterprise use. Those include the high cost of enterprise apps, the complexity of those apps, the need to track those licenses for software compliance and Software License Optimization purposes, and the concern about security and malware that is endemic in public app stores. For these reasons, there does not yet appear to be an obvious public marketplace app store model that can compare to the iTunes experience. But internal enterprise app stores are flourishing today. In this "consumerization of IT" age in which IT management is under great pressure to deliver better, more user friendly service – internal enterprise app stores are an obvious solution. Their true utility today, is behind the corporate firewall, where IT can still maintain security and control, and where employees can get the apps they need, when they need them, in a user-friendly, familiar self-service environment.
Self Service in the Enterprise
As companies of all types look to create more efficient supply chains, reduce costs and establish more direct relationships with customers – self-service is increasingly viewed as a curer of all ills. Stakeholders can serve themselves by signing onto a portal and find the information, support or products they need. This model increasingly is being deployed within enterprise IT organizations too, as the consumerization of IT demands this type of service and efficiency within the IT services framework. Enterprise app portals are a case in point, as organization seek to give employees an iTunes-like experience to access and download apps – and in the process, reduce the support strain on the IT organization as well. Organizations seeking to deploy enterprise app should do so cautiously, to ensure accountability and control are not sacrificed in the name of user self-service. Integration the app store with the company's software license optimization and application readiness strategies will alleviate these roadblocks.
App Stores: Reducing Support Costs While Actually Making Users Happy
As organizations look for new ways to save money and run more efficiently, they are naturally looking at the IT support desk. Personnel-intensive, the IT help-desk can weigh heavily on a company's balance sheet, with little direct impact on revenues. One way in which organizations are reducing those support costs is through employee self-service and enterprise app stores. Formerly a heavily manual and labor intensive process to support, companies are increasingly automating the application request, approval and delivery function through self-service applications. App stores are heavily automated and can be tied on the back end to companies' software license optimization and application readiness systems to ensure license compliance and deployment efficiency. And they also address employees' increasing demand for a more iTunes like experience for accessing and downloading apps for work. The result is an environment that simultaneously helps companies save money by reducing IT support services – and makes users happy.
App Store Can be Part of Organizations' SLO Strategy
IT often faces the task of balancing competing interests in order to deliver value to end users. Frequently, for instance, delivering value to users competes with IT's need to remain accountable and in control. The current consumerization of IT trend often places the interests of users and the organization in seeming conflict. For instance, users demand an iTunes-like experience for accessing and downloading apps. However, IT fears that implementing an internal app store will wreak havoc on their ability to track, manage and control software licenses to ensure compliance and optimized use. This is changing, however, as enterprise-focused app store technologies enable companies to deploy app stores that are integrated with their software license optimization environments. As a result, today app stores can deliver on their promise of providing a user-friendly front-end to enterprise applications, while also ensuring the control IT needs to effectively manage the license estate.
Just Because You Can Virtualize an App… Should You?
VDI promises to yield substantial cost savings and dramatically improve IT resource utilization. However migrating to virtual desktops is a time-consuming, costly and risky undertaking. It often requires assessing thousands of computers to determine good virtualization candidates and developing a migration plan – often without good visibility into how users and desktop applications consume resources like network bandwidth, storage, CPU and memory.

Application compatibility usually assesses simply whether an application can be virtualized – not whether it should be. A new category of application compatibility is therefore required to help companies properly put into place their virtualization strategies – virtual desktop assessment. IT must have a high level of confidence that the user will have a good experience with their virtual desktop. User and device compatibility must be part of the analysis to ensure the assessment is comprehensive and IT is making informed decisions. If IT only looks at application compatibility – companies are setting themselves up for potential failure and putting the desktop transformation projects at risk.
As Complexity Proliferates, Compatibility is Key
With the proliferation of new operating systems, environments and software versions – organizations are faced with increasingly complex choices as to where and how they should deploy applications. Whether deploying on premises, in virtual or cloud environments… on Win 7, Win 8 or to mobile devices… understanding compatibility is key to ensuring success. IT must look at constantly evolving technology with the long view, recognizing that some apps will stay right where they are, and some are better suited for migration. Compatibility is a key element of that decision – so companies can know ahead of time which applications will work… and which will not in the new proposed environment. Armed with that knowledge, IT can then assess the time and cost of migrating, fixing, packaging and deploying the app to the new target environment.

Installation Stories

Producers Must Plan for Multi-Platform, Multi-Environments
Developing applications that run on multiple platforms and in multiple environments does little good if deploying those applications is overly cumbersome and complex – for either the software vendor or their customers. To compete in a marketplace that requires multi-platform, multi-environment installations, producers must be able to simultaneously create all types of installation packages – from on-premises to virtual and cloud-based – all from a single project file. This includes the easy creation of cloud-ready images and enterprise-ready virtual appliances without requiring technical expertise by either the application producer or the end customer. By integrating these capabilities into their installation strategies, application producers can more easily enter new markets previously prohibited due to complexity, allowing for instance, easy creation of cloud-hosted/virtual machine evaluations, demonstrations and virtual labs in a controlled, pre-configured environment.
Application Tagging Supports Customers' Software Compliance Efforts
Application producers should automatically create and imbed software tags into their on-premises, cloud-based and virtual applications. Software "self-instrumentation" or software tagging is evolving as an industry standard, enabling software producers to create smarter applications that give application producers and enterprises better information about the software running. This helps application producers looking to accurately detect software products and versions installed on their customers' devices support their compliance and support efforts. It also enables producers to provide more value to their customers by delivering better visibility into the installed software estate, facilitating better software license optimization efforts.
Integrated Ecosystems and Virtual Appliances
According to Gartner in its top 2013 predictions, packaging of software and services to address infrastructure or application workload will increase over the coming year. There will be more shipment of "appliances," with software delivered as hardware. This translates to integrated ecosystems whereby there will be an increase in shipment of "appliances," with software delivered as hardware. This will require an integrated approach to packaging and installation to enable this trend.
Leveraging Evaluations to Grow Revenues
Software evaluations, or try-before-you-buy, are becoming increasingly popular methods employed by application producers to get their products in front of would-be customers. Evaluations enable users to take the software for a spin before committing to purchase. To leverage evaluations, however, producers must ensure that their applications are properly provisioned. Virtual appliances can allow prospects in minutes to quickly access the application without requiring complicated installations. Evaluations deployed on virtual appliances reduce the length and increases success of the proof phase of a trial. Accordingly, producers should look carefully at technologies enabling them to bundle their applications, complete with all related dependencies and operating systems, into a downloadable virtual machine. This will simplify the trial for the prospect and ensure the application will run as intended, providing the ease of use and proof point necessary to incent a sale.
Customer Experience Management—Don't Let Product Complexity Create a Bad First Impression
Customer experience management is critical in the software industry. If customers perceive an application to be complex, cumbersome and difficult to use – this reflects directly on the application producer and opens up a window of opportunity for competitors. Key to creating a good first impression is delivering a fast, consistent and easy installation experience for customers. And that experience must be consistent across all products. Given the complexity of environments and platforms, application producers must reevaluate their installation strategy to ensure it is simple, comprehensive and consistent across all environments.

Licensing, Entitlement & Compliance Management Stories

Producer Success in App Store Age Requires Right Licensing Strategy
Increasingly, consumers are looking to app stores as a marketplace for finding and downloading software. This trend is beginning to emerge for enterprise apps as well. Behind-the-firewall enterprise app stores are already gaining strong momentum. And public app marketplaces selling enterprise apps also growing in popularity. In order to be ready to make their software available in public app stores, producers need to reexamine their licensing and provisioning strategies to ensure they're app store-ready. For instance, feature-based licensing enables producers to flexibly license their software, breaking down their products into smaller packages with tailored functionality to perform specific tasks. These smaller apps are ideal for promoting in an App Store. But without flexible licensing, producers will have limited options as to what they can make available in an app store, thereby limiting market potential.
Trust-but-Verify /Compliance Management
Trust-but-Verify" software compliance models are increasing in popularity as customers wish to pay for software based on their actual use (and not based on the old, perpetual license model). According to the 2012 Software Pricing and Licensing Support, within the next 18-24 months, the majority of software producers plan on implementing some sort of usage-based software model. With this model, application producers and customers have access to actual customer application usage information that can be reconciled against the customer contracted entitlements – similar to a cell phone bill. The ability to get to a single source of truth regarding entitlements and actual usage is the foundation of a successful trust & verify approach. Competitive pressures, increasing enterprise interest in subscription models and a desire to improve producer/customer relationships is driving growing interest in a trust & verify compliance approach.
Piracy/IP Protection
Software Piracy and Intellectual Property (IP) protection are topics coming up with increasing frequency. For instance, 20% (versus 10% five years ago) of software downloads are coming from emerging economies, making IP protection more important than ever before. Mostly within the context of high profile infringement cases, such as the recent Apple/Samsung lawsuit, or in the context of lax national enforcement of copyright laws such as China and Russia. A less-understood, and an even more pervasive type of software "piracy" comes from both intentional and inadvertent overuse of software licenses. A "home" analogy helps illustrate the difference between IP infringement-type piracy and software licensing piracy. The former is akin to someone stealing the architectural plans to your house. The latter is more akin to a home invasion, where someone has broken into your house and is stealing your "stuff."

Software vendors can leverage software licensing and entitlement management to ensure that only those users that are actually entitled to use the software, can gain access. Here's how:
  • "Lock the doors" – Encrypting your license keys is the easiest way to make sure that any hacker with a "skeleton key" can't gain access to your hardware. Your license keys can't get copied and sold, or otherwise distributed to others other than your direct customer.
  • "Make sure the key only works in your house" – vendors can also make sure their software will only run on the device(s) for which it was licensed – and not any old computer. To do this, they can leverage licensing systems enabling them to uniquely "watermark" devices for the target hardware – so it can't be used elsewhere.
  • "Keep a bouncer at your front door" – if a software vendor has negotiated a particular licensing model for a customer (i.e. "try & buy, volume, floating, time-limited, subscription, named user, metered etc.), the vendor should have in place a compliance infrastructure to enforce that scheme – with a mechanism to either prevent over-use, or better yet – bill for it. This can be done in many ways, including checking dates on the licensing, counting users with access, etc.)
Reducing Application Producers' Risk Exposure
Software bugs and security holes go with the territory for application producers. No vendor produces perfect code all the time – so the process of getting patches and bug fixes to customers is critical -- critical to a producer's reputation. And also critical for compliance purposes – especially if code vulnerabilities place customers at risk. Electronic Software Updates – the process by which producers can push updates and fixes out to users automatically, therefore play a critical role beyond customer satisfaction. Using this method, producers gain the peace of mind that critical fixes will be implemented by customers exposed to a risk – whether or not the customer is aware of that risk. This lowers the compliance risk profile of all concerned – both the customer and application producer.
Growth Requires Licensing Standardization
Growth can cause pains for all organizations. Those growing through mergers & acquisition face more complex growth pains still – caused by inconsistent systems, processes and tools used by the disparate organizations now coming together. In the software space, this pain is felt acutely in software licensing , entitlements and delivery. Many companies develop their own licensing code, while others leverage third party systems. But as these companies merge, the disparate systems cause significant internal pain through managing different licensing systems in products that should be integrated. And for customers, different licensing and entitlement regimes cause confusion, inefficiency and frustration. Application producers who are growing or looking to grow, can alleviate these problems by standardizing their software licensing and entitlement regimes across all products. This enables easier internal administration, greatly enhances customer satisfaction, and positions the producer for future growth.
The Future of Device Manufacturing
Increased competition from new players on the world stage have a commoditizing effect across the device manufacturing spectrum – from medical devices and telecommunications equipment to oil and gas machinery and building automation. Complex supply chains and rising commodity, fuel and transportation prices are driving manufacturing costs up and margins down. And rapidly evolving markets and changing customer needs require a heightened flexibility and nimbleness that most old-line manufacturers simply don't have.

While many device manufacturers are collapsing under the pressure, some are succeeding – spectacularly. The new winners in the global economy enjoy tremendous profitability, high margins and virtually infinite product customization capabilities. Their strategy represents the future of manufacturing. Their formula for success is a Holy Trinity of sorts that can, and should be copied by all manufacturers seeking to remain competitive on the global stage. What is the strategy? Becoming solutions providers by going intelligent. What is the formula? Intelligent Device = App-enabled Hardware + Flexible Licensing dd>
Going Greener
The software industry is not thought of as polluting. Bits and bytes of code do not end up in landfills or the ocean. But the industry does use resources in the form of medium – CD Roms, DVDs and hard copy documentation. Increasingly, the industry is moving away from using the plastics and paper required to support traditional media – and toward direct electronic delivery of software and documentation. With the bandwidth opened up by the high-speed internet, using electronic software delivery (ESD) makes business sense – getting products and materials to customers instantly. But the planet also benefits from ESD – as less waste of renewable and nonrenewable resources are required.

Software License Optimization Stories

Organizations are "Accidental Pirates"
Most assume that software piracy is an isolated problem -- mostly perpetrated within countries with weak intellectual property enforcement or by unscrupulous criminals, But you may be surprised to learn that most of the world's software pirates are in fact large Corporations who, without their knowledge, are the biggest users of unlicensed software. It's costing the software industry $63bn a year, but costing the Corporations much more. Though unintentional, these 'accidental' pirates are helping themselves to billions of dollars of software licenses they don't own, and don't have the right to use.

Most organizations don't intend to be out of compliance in their software use, or indeed to break the terms of their license agreements. But as businesses grow, acquire or merge with other businesses the risks of "unintentional software piracy" or license non-compliance grows. Understanding the financial risk associated with non-compliant use of software licenses is key, but taking control of the software estate to ensure future non-compliance is critical.
Manage the Datacenter – or Face Huge Cost/Risk Exposure
Organizations running large datacenters face enormous risks and challenges associated with their software licenses – especially as virtualization and private clouds further complicate their environments. IT must understand how to migrate from on-premise software to the cloud, or from physical to virtual environments in the datacenter. How to optimize application in a virtual environment? How to manage costs and ensure software license compliance in a virtual environment? datacenters cannot be responsibly managed with poor visibility into software licensing. Proactively optimizing software licenses is the only means by which organizations can gain control over these risks and costs and ensure they are only buying what they need, and using what they have.
Managed Service Provider Getting into the ??
As Software License Optimization gains momentum in helping organizations reduce software licensing costs and manage risk, companies are increasingly outsourcing these functions – and managed services providers are seeing opportunity. Increasingly, they are adding software asset management and license optimization services to support this rapidly growing market. Accordingly the strategies and tools managed service providers deploy will impact whether or not they can succeed delivering strategic license optimization services across a multitude of clients. It's critical that MSPs have software license optimization tools that are easy to implement in their datacenters, provide automated, entitlement based license management and optimization and are highly scalable solutions.
Savings Await Companies Willing to Understand Their Software Entitlements'
Much is written today about how companies' are under-buying software licenses and facing audits for non-compliance. But less is understood about software license entitlements – those rules in the software licensing contract that detail how customers can install and use that software. Examples of software product use rights include upgrade rights; downgrade rights, second use rights; virtualization entitlements, and on and on. Failure to fully understand and leverage software license entitlements results in over-buying. Software license optimization strategies should include the ability to minimize license consumption by fully leveraging software product use rights to determine an optimized license position, and consequently, reduce ongoing software costs.
Software License Harvesting and Restructuring Eliminates Software Spend Waste
Software licenses are expensive. They're expensive to acquire – and even more expensive when they're not used – sitting idly on retired machines, or under-used because a more expensive version than necessary was acquired. Indeed, in this era of budget cuts and austerity – organizations are taking a closer look at their software to determine if wasted resource exists in their inventory. This is a very easy problem to acquire – and a difficult problem to solve unless the proper processes and tools are in place. Employee turnover and hardware retirement, for instance, are common scenarios in which licensed software can fall into disuse without anyone taking notice. When expensive "premium" software licenses were purchased when lower cost packages could have sufficed – waste again results. Software license reharvesting is the process by which unused, underused and idle licenses are identified and reinstated in the inventory pool. License "restructuring" or "remixing" is the process of performing detailed usage analysis and replacing unneeded high cost licenses with lower cost versions. And these are essential elements in any IT strategy to identify and eliminate waste.
Regaining a Negotiation Foothold with Software Vendors
Software vendors usually have a negotiating advantage when they audit customers' software use – especially if both parties must rely on vendor-supplied tools to measure software installations and compliance with license agreements. IBM requires its ILMT tool for calculating PVU licenses, and SAP uses its License Administration Workbench (LAW) report, for instance. And without independent access to inventory and license calculation data – organizations must accept a vendor's report as the single version of the truth. For this reason software license optimization is providing yet another advantage to customers, by providing an independent report of software installations and license calculations. Just as individuals would not attend an IRS tax audit without their accountants – they should not subject themselves to a vendor software audit without the assistance of a software license optimization report. This will even the playing field and provide companies with independent verification of their software usage and confidence in the negotiation process.
Long Term Software Spend Savings Requires Accurate Forecasting
Much of the discussion around software license optimization focuses on establishing an optimized license position in which all software licenses purchased are required. But this discussion only takes into account the present state – by analyzing past software acquisitions. It doesn't answer questions such as, "how much software will we need as we grow"? "How will adoption of new technologies like virtualization and the cloud impact my license position?" Indeed, for companies to truly take command of their licensing spend – they need to understand the financial impact of their decisions – before those decisions are made. And it speaks to the need of incorporating predictive analysis into any software license optimization strategy.

Videos

Application Readiness

Introducing AdminStudio Virtual Desktop Assessment

Flexera Software recently announced the launch of AdminStudio Virtual Desktop Assessment. An essential migration planning tool, AdminStudio Virtual Desktop Assessment accelerates enterprises' migration to user-centric computing and a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) while reducing the cost of achieving desktop virtualization objectives.

Application Compatibility and Software Packaging Business Requirements

Steve Schmidt, vice president of product management at Flexera Software, discusses the application compatibility and software packaging requirements to prepare for a migration to a new operating system or environment, such as virtualization. He explains how Flexera Software's AdminStudio can be used to help companies successfully complete these migrations and achieve continuous application readiness.

Software License Optimization

Running Business Applications in the Cloud: Creating a Roadmap for Success

In this video, Randy Littleson, Senior Vice President of Marketing at Flexera Software, discusses the business processes across the software lifecycle—including configuring (pricing, packaging and licensing) entitling and delivering the application on the producer side all the way to installing, controlling and optimizing the software on the enterprise side. He discusses the software licensing, entitlement management and software license compliance management challenges and implications for application producers and enterprises as they move to the cloud, SaaS and subscription-based models and technologies. 

Flexera Software's Vincent Smyth Discusses IT Outsourcing

IT outsourcing is an increasingly common strategy that enterprises choose to increase flexibility and gain cost management advantages without compromising the quality of service. However, there are software asset management implications that enterprises should understand before choosing IT outsourcing . First and foremost, while responsibility for managing software assets may be shifted to the outsourcer — the liability for license non-compliance if that company gets audited, does not. This can create some natural tensions between the enterprise and outsourcer. Vincent Smyth, vice president, EMEA, discusses this issue, and what enterprises can do to understand the potential risks of IT outsourcing, and how to minimize those risks.

Desire for Business Intelligence on Software Licensing

Amy Konary of IDC talks about "information as power" when it comes to software licensing use. Understanding how software is used is a critical insight to both enterprises and software vendors alike. Amy discusses what companies can do with this information to better their software license management.

Leveraging Software Usage Data to Drive Continuous Software Compliance and Optimized Spend

Steve Schmidt, vice president of product management at Flexera Software, discusses the challenges enterprises face in getting the most out of their investments in software. He details the importance of data and value of understanding software usage to ensure continuous software compliance and optimizing software spend.

Licensing, Entitlement & Compliance Management

Monetize and Enable Device Capabilities with Embedded Software Licensing: A Demonstration

In this video, Matthew Dunkley with Flexera Software demonstrates how embedded software licensing and entitlement management enables device capability and capacity provisioning on a robot arm intelligent device (a device commonly used in industrial environments). Matthew shares how embedded software licensing empowers manufacturers to: maximize device revenues by protecting and monetizing device capabilities and capacity; reduce manufacturing complexity and costs by manufacturing one device model and using licensing to turn on/off device capabilities; and support new licensing and pricing models and metrics like pay-as-you-grow.

Subscription Licensing Helps Transform Business from Hardware to Software-Centric

Tekelec Flanks the Competition -- Subscription Licensing Helps Transform Business from Hardware to Software-Centric

Software Licensing Trends Revealed in Annual Software Licensing and Pricing Report

Flexera Software's vice president of product management, Mathieu Baissac, discusses some of the interesting trend data he pulled from the 2011 Software Licensing and Pricing Report.

How Emerging Technologies Help Shape Flexera Software Licensing and Entitlement Products

Virtualization. Enforcement. Compliance. These are just some of the challenges faced by both software producers and enterprises as they make sense of new technology emerging at breakneck speed. In this video, Mathieu Baissac, Flexera Software's vice president of product development, talks about these trends, and how they translate to new products and product enhancements on Flexera Software's roadmap.  

Blogs

Application Readiness

Discussing the Best Practices and Trends in Application Readiness

Software License Optimization

Buy Only the Software You Need; Use All of the Software You Have

Entitlement and Compliance Management

Talking Successful Software

InstallTalk

Discussing the Best Practices and Trends in Software Installation Development

Customer Success Stories

Application Readiness
The City of Oklahoma City Saved Time and Reduced Costs to Prepare Applications for Migration

The City of Oklahoma City saved time and reduced costs to prepare applications for migration. Packaging time was cut from 50 man hours to two – more than a 95% reduction in man hours per application. This translates roughly to $1,300 savings in staff time for each application, and $97,000 for their entire Windows 7 Migration. AdminStudio also automated the process to convert applications to the App-V format.

Tauw Saves Time Implementing Application Virtualization

Achieving a Cutting Edge Environment Based on Standards, Streamlining Processes while Saving the Firm Time, Effort and Budget: an AdminStudio and Workflow Manager success story 

MFS Investment Management: Learn How MFS Cut Packaging Time by 25%, and Maximizes the ROI on Microsoft SMS

Unmatched SMS integration in a tool that is quick, accurate, robust and easy to use: an AdminStudio success story

Team Fishel: See How They Saved $140,000 in Annual IT Costs and 300 Packaging Hours in 6 Months

Using proven toolsets to greatly speed the application readiness process, saving over $140,000 a year: an AdminStudio success story

Software License Optimization
IT Managed Service Provider Creates Scalable SAM Service Based on FlexNet Manager Suite

The increase in productivity offered by FlexNet Manager Suite has enabled the company to roll out its SAM Managed Services to more than 40 medium and large enterprises to date, and the number is growing. They also use the Flexera Software license management and optimization technology internally and have achieved significant cost savings on software from several key vendors.

Flexera Software: Reduces Microsoft True-up Cost by 92% Through License Optimization

FlexNet Manager Suite for Enterprises was implemented to automate the software asset management (SAM) and license optimization process. IT asset inventory is being collected, SAM process improvements were made and automated license reconciliation and optimization were put in place. As a result, the company is saving time and money and has gained the management precision needed to efficiently utilize its limited IT staff and budget resources.

HiSilicon Technologies Co., Ltd: Solves License Server Management Problem for Global Design Team

To provide streamlined management of its various license servers, HiSilicon installed FlexNet Manager for Engineering Applications. This advanced concurrent license management solution provides a single console view that enables organizations to be proactive in resolving license availability issues, managing license server administration, and optimizing software license utilization to reduce costs.

Global Security Company: Learn how a Fortune 500 global security company discovered that 20% of its SAP licenses were unused

With FlexNet Manager for SAP Applications, the company has documented usage of SAP software licenses for each user and discovered that 20% of its SAP licenses were unused. This allowed the company to avoid new SAP license purchases, saving approximately $1 million. The company is now streamlining purchasing and leveraging the information provided by FlexNet Manager Suite to negotiate more favorable software license contracts for SAP, Microsoft and other software vendors.

Installation
iPass

Learn why iPass switched to InstallShield to generate installers.

Global Business Process Outsourcing Provider: Delivered a Professional and Reliable Install Experience

A global business outsourcing provider contracted by the Federal Government to develop a major application with complex requirements and an extremely tight deadline delivers a quick, professional and reliable install with the help of InstallShield and Flexera Software's Global Consulting Services.

NetApp: Developed Reliable Software Installations 70% Faster

Learn how NetApp switched from WiX to InstallShield in order to develop reliable software installations 70% faster.

Websense: Reliably Installs their Solution on Multiple Platforms using InstallAnywhere

Websense uses InstallAnywhere to reliably install their Websense Web Security solution on Windows, Linux, and V-Series Websense appliances. InstallAnywhere simplifies and streamlines software development by enabling Websense to build a single installation project that works for every platform they target. The InstallAnywhere installer also provides Websense's end users with a reliable and professional installation experience.

Licensing, Entitlement Management and Delivery
Flexera Software: Learn How Flexera Software Used FlexNet Operations On Demand to Create a Single, Unified Entitlement and License Management System

FlexNet Operations On-Demand allowed Flexera Software to have a single, unified entitlement and license management system for customers that is available 24x7 while standardizing and streamlining many internal back-office processes.

Sentinel IC Technologies Reaps Immediate 300% Return On Investment in FlexNet Licensing

As a global provider of design productivity software for analog semiconductor design, Sentinel IC Technologies is committed to providing state-of-the-art technology to their customers. And increasingly, their customer base is seeking ways to harness the capabilities of cloud and virtualization technologies. This compelled Sentinel IC to search for a solution that allowed them to more effectively monetize their solutions in this space, while also minimizing revenue leakage. Also available in Japanese. 

Convey Computer Delivers Value with FlexNet Producer Suite

Discover how Convey Computer uses FlexNet licensing technology to ship a single, complete version of its hybrid-core system and associated SDK to all customers, selectively enabling/disabling features for both the initial trial and any new requirements that emerge over time.

Thomson Reuters Eikon: FlexNet Connect Helps Financial Software Deliver Value 24/7

FlexNet Connect enabled Thomson Reuters to release their Thomson Reuters Eikon financial software product with best-in-class software update capabilities that give their customers peace of mind that their real-time financial desktop software will be up-to-date and operational 24/7.

White Papers

Application Readiness
Creating a Well-Stocked, Well-Managed Enterprise App Store

This white paper discusses how an app store is a key component of an Application Usage Management strategy by giving employees a consumer-like, self-service experience in gaining access to the applications they need to do their jobs. The white paper also highlights how the integration of App Portal, AdminStudio and FlexNet Manager Platform enables enterprises to unify the software request, application packaging, deployment and license management processes.

A Smart Strategy for Streamlining and Accelerating Windows 7 Migration

Read this white paper to learn how you can develop and implement a smart strategy for Windows 7 (or 8) migration, one that simplifies and speeds the migration process without exposing your organization to risk.

Getting Maximum Value from Enterprise Software with Application Usage Management

Application Usage Management for the Enterprise enables you to control the steady influx of new software needed to run the business and gain competitive advantage.

Virtual Desktops for the Enterprise

Read this white paper to learn how AdminStudio Virtual Desktop Assessment enables organizations to make informed decisions when planning a virtual desktop solution strategy by capturing and analyzing critical data into actionable reports suited for each part of the project. The results are a well-designed infrastructure that will ensure high-levels of user satisfaction while minimizing management efforts and overall costs.

Software License Optimization
Moving Up the Software License Optimization Maturity Curve to Drive Business Value

Learn about the business value of software asset management (SAM) and license optimization at each level of maturity and why achieving the Optimized level brings the highest ROI.

Getting Maximum Value from Enterprise Software with Application Usage Management

Application Usage Management for the Enterprise enables you to control the steady influx of new software needed to run the business and gain competitive advantage.

Gartner Report: Software License Optimization Vendor Overview

Managing software entitlement and license compliance continues to pose a challenge to asset managers. Given the sheer number of vendors that a company might do business with and the myriad ways the applications are licensed, it is no wonder that organizations struggle to deal with this problem. Read this report to learn more about Gartner's recommendations.

Introducing Software License Optimization White Paper

Read this white paper to learn from Forrester about a radical new license management approach that supersedes hardware-based asset management. Also available in French. 

Installation
What Installation Authors Need to Know About COM Extraction

Learn about various types of COM extraction available in InstallShield and how-to switch between methods.

Five Tips for Delivering Working Software with Agile

This white paper discusses the five ways that teams can integrate installation into their agile processes, improving application quality, providing for better customer satisfaction and further accelerating application delivery.

Agile Practices and Installation Development

Learn about how installation development is increasingly integrated into agile development practices. Agile processes are characterized by multiple iterations and frequent delivery of working software to users, who provide rapid and almost continuous feedback on the scope and direction of the application.

Microsoft App-V: What Software Developers Should Know

Download this white paper to learn about Microsoft App-V and how it is impacting software installation development.

Licensing, Entitlement Management and Delivery
IDC Report: Hardware Companies Face Unique Challenges in Growing Software Revenue

This IDC Report discusses some of the unique software licensing challenges faced by hardware companies and includes recommendations for elevating the value of software in hardware companies as well as licensing trends that impact these firms.

Innovation Insight: Original Solution Orchestrators Extend Innovation in the Demand-Driven Supply Chain

The manufacturing business is changing. To remain competitive and drive growth in the face of a demanding marketplace, device manufacturers are differentiating themselves by rethinking their business models and product strategies. Today, more and more manufacturers are transforming their business models to be more solution centric, where software drives differentiation and value.

Software License Compliance Management: Optimizing Software Revenue and Customer Satisfaction

This white paper examines the pros and cons of traditional compliance management approaches, the impact technology has on compliance management, the increasing complexity of software licensing models, and the growing trend towards trust but verify compliance management approaches.

Embedded Software Is an Enabler of Demand-Driven Supply Chain Orchestration

This report, prepared by Gartner, discusses how the use of embedded software to create efficiency, grow revenue and increase customer satisfaction has spread across the discrete manufacturing industries. Flexera Software is featured prominently in this report.

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