Pre-Sales Questions about SOLO Server

• Instant gratification for your customers.
• Optionally protects your software from unauthorized use.
• Turns your demo into the live product at purchase.
• Makes software distribution easier by streamlining licensing process.
• Sales tax savings to customers when software is transferred electronically.
• Reduces administrative and manufacturing costs, which can be passed on to the user.
• Additional cost-savings in packaging, shipping, and labor.
• Increases impulse buying.
• Optionally protects against fraudulent credit card chargebacks.
• Exposes your software to new markets.
• Adds a point of sale location for your software.
• Sell and authorize your product 24 hours a day hands-free.
• The PLUS™ unlocking technology is field-proven and has been available since 1991.

Q. Why is ELA™ better than ESD?
A. There are many web sites which offer e-commerce and software distribution by allowing the customer to "download" the real product once they pay for it. This is called Electronic Software Delivery (ESD). SoftwareKey's Electronic License Activation™ (ELA) allows software running on your customer's computer to simply be "activated" after paying for it.

• In most cases, your customer already has your software and they simply need to enable it.
• Customers are not forced to re-download software from the Internet – saves time.
• Customers are not forced to install the real software over the demo software – saves time.
• There is very little or no security in the buy and download scenario. A customer could email the real software to friends, or the software distributor could inadvertently give the software away.
• When using only ESD, you as a developer cannot tap into the power and flexibility of sending software keys to your application in the future (pay- per-use, renting, multi-user licensing, etc.). There is more to licensing than just giving the customer the retail software.
• If you want to implement software licensing features, you must do this in addition to giving the download site an unlocked copy of your software. SoftwareKey adds one more layer of protection and control to the developer and the distributor.
• Many buy and download sites allow repeated downloads using their Order ID, essentially allowing the customer to download an unlimited number of times by paying for it once. This one Order ID could be shared, sold OR hacked to allow unauthorized downloads. Using SoftwareKey to not only a download but so activate prevents these illegal copies. One buy = one unlock.

Q. What value does Protection PLUS add?
A. Protection PLUS is a software licensing toolkit that is fully compatible with SoftwareKey. It not only provides the tools necessary to implement the software key transfer (unlocking), but it also allows the license state to be maintained and controlled in an encrypted, binary format. There are functions that allow:

• An expiration date and/or expiration counter to be maintained.
• User-defined character, numeric, and date fields to be stored.
• Network fixed and floating licenses to be enforced.
• Copy protection to be enforced – eliminating software theft.
• Serialization and personalization to be accomplished without re-compiling your application, and more!

Q. Can I get customized consulting services?
A. Since Concept Software has many years of software licensing and e-commerce experience, we have mastered many of the issues involved in combining these two technologies. When you license our SoftwareKey technology, you can call upon our technical team to assist you during your implementation and deployment. We have discounted rates for Protection PLUS customers. Custom service packages may be negotiated at a further discount.

Also, many of our users have expressed an interest in providing consulting services for users of various programming languages. In many cases, if we are not able to help you, we might be able to find someone who can!