SoftwareCEO - Licensing Issues Forum

CEO Survey: What are the limits on your software license?

Peter Redmer — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 16:36:52 GMT

IP licensing

ci_98yr — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 19:32:10 GMT

Licensing gurus: Appreciate if any one can give me some insights into the following situation: We are "cash-strapped" startup (which startup isn't?, initially). We recently got a patent issued from USPTO. We have been engaging a major online services company which provides services to a mutual customer (for us the customer is still a beta-customer) for over a year. Finally, they offered to license our technology but not our code or integration into our platform for some security reasons. It is very clear that they are interested in IP but not our s/w and probably for this reason they have been waiting. Our typical licensing to direct customer would an annual license $x/yr/user. Besides this, we have huge market on several verticals. I have some concerns and some ideas (crazy) on how going about.. Concerns: a) Our product is designed with some secret sauces so as to make our product/solution universal (else also works but we lose control and make a fuss of differerent implementations that end users get tired and eventually dont use our solution). What can be done here while negotiating? b) We dont know whats their time line to implement our technology. If we leave it open,...

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CEO Survey: What percent of your software licenses are subscription based?

Peter Redmer — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 22:46:10 GMT

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Newby needing advise on what documents/agreements needed

JP01 — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 15:23:42 GMT

Hello all, This is my first post and look forward to contributing to future topics. I am a new startup company that has its own proprietary software offered as a Saas to customers. This software is controlled, protected and maintained on our servers where clients login to administer and manage their accounting related activities. My questions are: 1) What type of documents do I need to get started or provide our customers before the official agreement is reached? 2) From a legal perspective, what licensing or agreements do I need to protect my business? Thanks in advance.

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How charge customers to upgrade to a bundle?

MSprice — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 19:45:58 GMT

Have a question about upgrading customers of individual applications to a bundle of software that includes their currently owned application. I used to sell a bunch (5 different stand alone products) of financial reporting software products to the enterprise. Early this year I collapsed all of the products into one "bundle" (they work closely together, so it doesn't look like it used to be 5 apps – is more seamless ) – so now I only sell one SKU. The individual products all were sold per server at different price points. The new bundle is sold based on "Named User". There are older customers (anywhere from 6 months to 3 years) who want to move from what they currently have to the full bundle. Some own just 1 of the old standalone products, some 2, some 3. None owns all. All are current on their support agreements (customers number in the hundreds). My question is: what are the best practices around how I sell customers the bundle when they are upgrading from 1 (or more) products that are now included in the bundle? Do I simply discount and terminate old licenses? For every old product and combination of old products...

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Reseller reluctant to enter into 50 page master license agreements with buyers

jimjones — Tue, 31 May 2011 21:40:25 GMT

Our company resells a line of software products that are owned by a public company. The size of the deals can reach 6 figures. The companies to which we're selling want our company (reseller) to execute a master agreement with them. As a reseller, it's difficult to commit to the terms and conditions of the Master License Agreement which can run 50 to 100 pages. We're not the owner of the product yet their corporate policies require an established relationship with us to purchase the software. We reluctant to enter into an Agreement because many of the obligations can only be satisfied by the Product owner & not us, the reseller. The product owner won't enter into Master License agreements so we're in a Catch-22. Any thoughts/comments/solutions would be most appreciated. Thanks in advance, Jim J

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White labelling software

Old Dave — Tue, 24 May 2011 19:54:27 GMT

Hi, I have developed some enterprise software. I am engaging with a partner who will buy 51% of my company and sell this new software alongside their existing compelmentary established software. They have exclusive rights, as they own 51%, the product is branded as theirs. So they will need to do so with their Sales, Marketing and Support functions intact and integrated. So my new company will supply the software, 3rd level support and consulting for custom versions and ongoing updates and improvements. I am trying to see how we can structure the charging for the internal service between the 2 companies. I can see 2 ways of doing this: 1. They charge back for all the Sales, Support and Marketing services they provide and we charge for any consulting work we do for them. We split the profit on pre agreed terms. 2. We simply charge a licence for the standard product and any 3rd level support or consulting work we do and they take the profit on theh sale to the customer. Interested to know how other businesses have structured this. Thanks, David

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Licence code

zeidbop — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 17:19:09 GMT

I sell add-ons to a CRM system. Currently I have sold the add-ons for one price and that has included updates. When a client purchases the software I give them a registration code that is tied to their CRM system's serial number. That way they are only able to run the software on that system and not pass it on to others. There is also a version that is free to download and try. It is tied to the CRM system's test or sample database so it is good for demoing but cannot be used on its own. I realise that I would like to start charging an annual maintenance fee for the software. This would include support but also updates to the application. The problem is this. I would like to keep the demo, unrestricted version but also the existing clients who bought the software would not pay maintenance. How do I ensure that new clients don't just download the trial version adn apply their registration code to it in order to get a lifetime free maintenance. I have a few ideas but they all involve either having multiple versions of the software or making everyone enter a new...

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Getting offices to pay for Multi-User licenses

tturner — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 18:16:47 GMT

Hello, We've been in business since 1993.... started selling to consumers only... later started selling to financial advisors. We have not sold "per computer" licenses because a lot of our customers are solo guys who want it on their desktop and laptop... Thus allowing them to install on multiple computers is a selling point and they receive good value. Our software is sold by activation key tied to registration info (name and birthdate) and not by any computer id. Thus enter the "small office" situation. We have too many of them buying one copy and installing it on multiple machines and only paying for one... even though multiple advisors use it. The software is locked to the name but if they use the "head guy" then I guess they justify it to clients that he's one of the partners or the owner or what have you. We are conflicted about how to sell our software to small offices as we KNOW we are leaving a lot of money on the table... but have not figured out a pricing policy that we can enforce and get paid for.... If we lock it to the computer, most advisors will then install it...

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SaaS Licensing for Enterprises

Fatandrich — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 15:23:43 GMT

We provide a SaaS sourcing and procurement product using a subscription (per user per month model). It works well for most organisations but some of our global clients are looking for enterprise licensing - whereby they can have more users and more predictability of cost. I'd appreciate thoughts on how we can provide an enterprise model which compliments rather than compromises our subscription model. Thanks

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Tools/Services to allow us to sell our desktop software as a service (SaaS)

Entrepreneur — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 22:37:43 GMT

We are going to sell our (Windows) Desktop software by subscription. (For the last 15 years it's been sold with a one time charge) I'm looking for some tools and or services that will let our VB6 programs do the following: Talk to a server and verify that the customer's SubscriptionID is still valid (and ideally work thru any firewalls and not require us to *install* anything on our hosted server (maybe just some simple ASPX pages, etc.) -Do recurring billing Currently we have a simple ASP page with a list of still valid SubscriptionID's. We give out an ID when someone starts a subscription and manually change it to Expired when they leave. And we do billing manually once a month. I've found a few license components (like ElectKey) but they normally only handle the first part. I've also found a few companies (Chargify.com and Spreedily.com) which will handle subscriptions for *website* and do recurring billing. I may just start using something like these two and "glue" it together with our ASP page. (So our software talks to our ASP page which just acts like *it* is the web service being subscribed to). But... I thought I'd see if...

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SW License Management Tools

lconroy — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 18:41:08 GMT

Is there any SW License Management Tools that are written in OpenSource?

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Licensing and Protecting Excel Spreadsheets

rentalvaluator1@yahoo.com — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 02:38:39 GMT

I know there were threads about this before, but my question is very specific. There is a product that does almost what I am looking for called DoneEX: it takes an excel spreadsheet, converts it into .exe format, puts hardware locks on it and optional trial periods/expiration dates. BUT, it converts all the formulas in the original excel file into binary code to hide them, and this technology is faulty. The formulas don't work half the time and it also slows down the application significantly. Does anyone know of a similar application that doesn't convert formulas to binary code? Thanks, Daniil.

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Trend in sofware license durations?

ippu — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 05:57:11 GMT

I would like to know what is the trend in enterprise software license durations, in case of premises based software? What I meaan is, that instead of having a perpetual license fee, are there more and more companies moving to license fees that need to be renewed? And what is the renewal period - is it tyÃ®cally 1, 2 or 3 years? (or something else)

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Need a substitute for the term Â“licensing feeÂ”

BlockMental — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 04:48:54 GMT

Hello and my apologies for a seemingly silly question about semantics. Our company funded the in-house development of a custom software application. We have a customer that has requested a proposal for the use of this application for 12 months, possibly more. Normally we would propose a renewable annual Â“licensing feeÂ” for the use of the software. However (for reasons beyond the scope of this post), we need to avoid the use of the term Â“licensing feeÂ” or Â“software leaseÂ”, or Â“software subscriptionÂ” or Â“software rentalÂ”. Instead, weÂ’re looking for an industry standard term (if there is one), that addresses what weÂ’re attempting to do: recover the costs we've incurred in developing the software application. About the only term that weÂ’ve hit upon so far is: Â“Software Development Recovery FeeÂ”. This term is Â“okayÂ” but it seems a bit awkward, especially if thereÂ’s something more conventional thatÂ’s already in use. Background: In terms of our business model, our primary proposal is for services and the software application is not so much of a revenue stream, as it is a Â“cost of doing businessÂ”. The challenge is that the customer has agreed to cover our software development costs, but not as...

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any licensing tools suggested?

davferg — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 23:48:01 GMT

Anyone recommend a seat management license tool that can be embedded in a software product? Looking for something that provides online registration and tracking of license keys to support a new product with seat licenses. Similar to how Adobe does their Professional software now, if you use a serial key that you used previously, it will transfer the new key to that laptop and if you try to start the older install it will no longer work.

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Question : Open Source License

pramod_koshy — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 10:43:43 GMT

Hello, There is an open source software that is a client - server based software. This is licensed on the GPL V3. Many other companies have built ontop of the original software, and have developed a web based interface to the same software. And to that these companies have added a trade mark and attribute license. We also have done exactly the same thing, we also have taken the same client - server code and provided our own interface to it. Will the GPL license allow us to close our modifications to the code ? Can we sell our product on a commercial license ? Is building a web based interface a type of closed source add ons. What kind of a lawyer should we contact regarding these issues ? Is it okay to ask a lawyer for references ? Is there any lawyer-client confidentiality issues that prevent us from asking for references.? regards,

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Question - Limited Liability carveout

petero — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 20:13:33 GMT

We're a small financial software company currently negotiating a license agreement with a money center bank. We've had to use their baseline MLA which is, of course, highly slanted in their favor. We have the standard disclaimer of all liabilities for lost profits, consequentials, etc. however, they're asking for the following carveouts: 1) gross negligence/willful misconduct 2) personal injury/death 3) breach of confidentiality 4) IP/infringement 5) property damage In past negotiations with similar entities, we've occasionally wound up giving on some combination of 1)-4). However, 5) seems extremely broad and is never something we've caved on. The nightmare is "Your software made my computer freeze which means we lost a transaction worth $10million..." What are others experience on negotatiating this provision? If you have given on any of these, which ones? Thanks in advance

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What is included in the maintenance agreement?

Chanimal — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 21:02:19 GMT

Can you help with a few pricing questions: 1. What is the typical industry standard for and/or best practice for what is included in support & maintenance plans (should it include upgrades? Updates, etc.) 2. What is the smoothest way to transition so as not to alienate old-school customers who have grown with us on the old model. Thanks

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Saas Vendor <-> ISV Licensing models

ravinath — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 07:23:07 GMT

I would like to understand the various license models that can exist between a Saas vendor and an ISV. Here I assume that the Saas vendor is the hosting provider too. With virtualization becoming a reality, what is its impact on the licensing between the Saas vendor and the ISV. Any thoughts?

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