Risks with a “Do It Yourself” Approach to Software Licensing

SoftwareKey works with a wide range of businesses, budgets, licensing requirements, and staff skill levels.  Frequently, we find that customers underestimate the level of detail involved in successfully launching and maintaining a licensed application throughout its lifetime.

Consider What You Don't Know

When it comes to software licensing, as with so many things in this world, often you don’t know what you don’t know.

The correct implementation of licensing is essential to the smooth operation of your software product.    By opting for the most professional and secure implementation and design, you can be confident that your investment will lead to profits.

Do It Yourself Approach Works Well With Simple Licensing

Most customers who have simple licensing requirements, or those who have senior-level staff with licensing experience, can implement the SoftwareKey System inside of their software using our Do It Yourself approach.   And you can always contact us if you get stuck: we’re happy to answer simple questions under our Standard Support plan.

Consider These Risks with Do It Yourself Approach

BUT, remember that there can definitely be risks if you choose the Do It Yourself approach, especially if your staff is new to software licensing technology:

  • Trying to bring together multiple different licensing models in the same application can create inter-dependencies that are easy to miss or not realize until it is too late.  What may seem simple can become complex very quickly.
  • Responses to questions posted to our Standard Support staff will come from one of the many skilled people on our team. However, on this level you do not benefit from a central project manager who understands your licensing goals in detail. And unfortunately, answering questions in piecemeal bites without understanding your overall goals is possibly going to result in extra time being spent by all parties involved.
  • You don't want to be surprised if a flaw in your implementation is discovered after the software is released.  Patching security or implementation flaws on released software can sometimes involve significant time and money, and may even generate customer dissatisfaction.
  • Finally, even during normal operations, licensing flaws can sometimes open up exploitable holes that could allow customers or hackers to steal your software more easily.
profile-pic
Bernice Kelly Owner, School by Design

Expert, Timely Support Even with 13H Time Difference

The most impressive feature of SoftwareKey is the quality and expertise of its support. As an Australian business, email was the common interaction. All questions were answered in a timely, respectful, expert and comprehensible manner whether simple or complex. As educators, these were qualities we most notice and most value.

profile-pic
Ian Batey CEO, IDMB Advisory LTD

Best IT Support by a Country Mile

Every time I raise a ticket with SoftwareKey, it gets dealt with promptly and with insight. Your team should be congratulated on such a consistently good performance. TRUST me, I deal with a number of IT support sites and yours is the best by a country mile.

profile-pic
Stuart Nielsen Chief Information Officer / Tools4FIM (OXFORD COMPUTER GROUP)

Support like this is hard to find.

Over my 25 years, of all the companies I have encountered, Mike and his team rank in the top five in customer support, responsiveness and help. I suppose in this day in age that is probably the highest commendation that I can give Mike and his team.

profile-pic
Dustin Armstrong VP Operations, Tenacity, Inc.

It's Nice to See Sales Come in at 3am

SoftwareKey is a one stop shop for software protection. Tenacity has been using their solutions since we opened in 2004, and I would not consider going anywhere else. I love the SoftwareKey built-in shopping cart and tools they provide to protect our software from theft. It is nice to see sales come in at 3am.

The support that these guys offer is top notch. Dealing with the lowest technician all the way to the company owner has always been a pleasure.

profile-pic
Chuck Vigeant M.Ed. Managing Partner, CLEARIFY®

We Made the Correct Choice with SoftwareKey

We have been impressed with both products and services by SoftwareKey. First and foremost, it works and when we need help we get it. Dependability is second to none - of any product I have used in the last 3 decades. They are receptive to constructive criticism, and are always honest in their approach.

SoftwareKey created a custom report for us, which allows us to view our licensing base - and what version they are on - in the blink of an eye, helping us support our customers better.

We made the correct choice when we made the decision to use their technology.

profile-pic
Timour Koupeev Vose Software, Head of Development

Team SoftwareKey's Support is Brilliant!

Our company develops software for risk management and quantitative risk analysis. We're very impressed with the license management and license activation features of the SoftwareKey System. Implementation is intuitive and well explained in the manual and samples. We are very happy with the SoftwareKey System's set of tools - we have relied on them for more than 10 years now and they have never failed us.

Their client support is also brilliant - always helpful and timely.

profile-pic
Andre Martinez Executive Business Services, Inc.

Flexible and Stable for Thousands of Users

We have used Protection PLUS for many years with thousands of users, and it has been a very flexible and stable product. We recently encountered an issue requiring FIPS-compliance in our software in order to participate with some US government contracts. We contacted SoftwareKey support to inquire about a FIPS-compliant version of Protection PLUS. Even though it required a special build of their library, they researched the issue and provided a solution very quickly. This was a big deal for us to support some large companies evaluating our product.

profile-pic
Bret McClay

Above and Beyond the Typical Level of Support

I just wanted to take the time to write this email and indicate my high level of satisfaction with the support that your team has provided throughout the trial, purchase, and setup of your software products. The support team is friendly, listens to my questions, knows your products inside and out, and conduct themselves in a manner that is highly conducive to simply getting things done. It is quite clear that they go above and beyond the typical level of support that is expected, and I hope that it is well-recognized that this is essential to procuring new business and referrals.

profile-pic
Matthew Friedman National Instruments

Big Value that delivers!

We spent a lot of time integrating the SoftwareKey platform with our platform, that was a really big value add that delivers productivity and value to our development community by having tight integration with our tools. Being able to work together [with SoftwareKey] like that enabled us to bring this additional value that would not have been possible otherwise.

profile-pic
Mark Daniel Director of Explicit Business Solutions Ltd

The Jump Start Service Was Great and Helped Me Relax and Sort Things Out

We are a new startup business and will initially be selling software to the construction industry and providing consulting services.

What I really like about the SoftwareKey System is that it's quick to setup, provides full automation when using SOLO Server for customers to download and activate software instantly and it will also integrate with FastSpring for payments.

We are in the process of launching our first product. I went with the SoftwareKey System as the system looked relatively easy to implement and the fact that the client can purchase, download and activate automatically without me having to deal with that side of things is a great time saver.

I researched a lot of different products and kept coming back to SoftwareKey for the below reasons. They have a large amount of online information including online tutorials, webinars and tips, etc. which is great. As I am totally new to the licensing of software, one massive thing for me was good customer support for which I have only read good reviews about in regards to SoftwareKey. I also found their pricing to be very reasonable - especially important to me was that I did not want to be paying out huge amounts for the software automation for downloading and activating the software. This was important to me as a new start up company and not having massive cash reserves to rely on until the product gets some traction.

I used the Jump Start Service a few nights ago to make sure I was doing things correctly etc. Dan from SoftwareKey was who I dealt with and I have got to say he was great - relaxed and helped me sort things out - no worries. So yes the customer service is great. I would not hesitate for a second in recommending SoftwareKey.

>