I just wanted to get some feed back on a new line of thinking I am trying to spread about software licensing. I am talking to Gartner and others but since we have lot of technical execs in this forum I thought I will try and get feedback from here also. So here goes….
Currently they way we buy software is nothing like how we buy anything else in life. If you buy a 30 dollar toaster you can let anyone use it. Same goes true for Computer, a projector, printer or any other thing you buy (even your toys, books etc., etc.,) however when you buy a $5000 software you were told only the person who bought it can use it and no one else can use it. The result of this is that billions of dollars worth of software assets are lying around unused at any given point in time creating the worst possible productivity scenario for software assets.
It is a common scenario in enterprises where a software is idle on a computer but the person in the next cube cannot use it and if he/she wants it even for a brief time they have to get a new copy. You are not able to move the license around the way you can move a printer or a toaster around. Some of them go to other ridiculous model where if you want to share you need to pay 5X more for the same copy of software (aka concurrent licensing).
The primary reason for this used to be that unlike a toaster, software can be easily duplicated so instead of trying to solve that issue the software manufacturer took the easy way out by making the customers pay a lot more by making the strict rules about who can use the software.
Another reason the customers did not bother about this is because Even if the ISV allowed you to move the software license around there is not a tool that easily moves the software around and let you keep track of total number of licenses etc.,
So here is a question to this group :
As a buyer of software, assuming you have a tool that makes sure that people cannot copy the software at will in the company and it lets you move the license around (when the people do not use it remove the copy and return the license to the central pool and when the user wants to use the software it should be installed and they should be able to use the software in couple of minutes) will you be willing to (and able to) negotiate a licensing model that will allow you to move the license around at will with the ISVs?.
