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.
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Brooks Wait Owner & Certified LabVIEW Architect, Brooks Consulting LLC

Invaluable Customer Support!

I wrote a custom software dialog that gives our user the ability to evaluate our software or activate it, which is an advanced application that requires API calls and custom modifications to the license to activate both licenses. The SoftwareKey API has lots of options, so I worked with Tanner to activate their software and another licensed feature needed for our custom software licensing use case. Tanner's knowledge and support was invaluable throughout the process. I don't believe I would have been able to accomplish this task in an efficient manner without him.

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Michael Gencarelli Co-Founder / nGeneYes, Inc.

The SoftwareKey System is the complete package!

I wanted to make sure that everything was set up right, and that required more than your standard support. I was willing to pay for additional help, so I signed up for the Jump Start program.

Team SoftwareKey worked with me to get it scheduled, because my schedule has been so tight. And they were thorough. They went through all the settings and checked under the hood for me, making sure we had everything set up right.

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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.

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Graeme Cox Managing Director and Co-Founder, Davco OptiSurface Pty Ltd

Getting to our first sale online was fast!

It's easy to trial, relatively low costs to get started, the support is good, the web shop being automatically set up is great. Instant SOLO Server is great, you don't have to mess around with any of that stuff. It's all taken care of.

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Joe Herres VP, Product. H3 Solutions/Mobile Entree

Affordable Licensing Solution and a Great Support Team

The SoftwareKey team was willing to work with us on a couple of custom needs we had and provided great support for our licensing needs for 6+ years. We were able to go to market with confidence, knowing that our software would be protected against piracy.

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Dave Poulin Senior Business Development Manager, Panasonic Computer Solutions Company

SoftwareKey Was a Good Decision for Us

SoftwareKey was able to help us address a business need in a quick and professional manner. They have consistently shown us how flexible and helpful their staff is. We took the selection of a vendor very seriously and the decision has proven to be a good one.

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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.

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Ray White Fog Line Software LLC

The Best Investment I Have Ever Made for My Business

I just want to thank you SoftwareKey for the # 1 greatest product and customer service that you have supplied me with for the past nine years. My business could not operate without you and you take so much of the work load out of my business that you could not even imagine. SoftwareKey is like having your very own special department for your own business. SoftwareKey has the # 1 greatest one-on-one customer support that you could ever ask for. I know SoftwareKey has been the best investment I have ever made for my business and I look forward to many more years of doing business with you. Keep up the great work and as always I look forward to seeing what new feature you have for us coming in the future.

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Henry He Overland Conveyor Company Inc.

Brilliant!

Thank you! I'd also simply like to say you guys have been amazing, I've sent multiple tickets the past few weeks and the promptness and fullness of your replies has been brilliant!

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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.

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