Hello Eight,
I will answer this in two parts
- first describe Microsoft's Licensing 6.0
- benefits / drawbacks to the developer and purchaser of a software
subscription
There are a number of good summaries of Microsoft Licensing 6.0
starting with
http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/programs/sa/default.asp
which have links to describe the family of subscription and volume
plans available from Microsoft. It may be useful to get the data
straight from Microsoft without interpretation and to see how they
sell it to their users.
A couple related news / commentary articles at CNET
http://news.com.com/2009-1001-257434.html?legacy=cnet&tag=st.ne.ni.metabox.metacomm
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-257390.html?legacy=cnet&tag=st.ne.ni.metacomm.ni
This latter one has quite a few numbers in it relating to the
frequency of updates and relative costs.
A number of related articles and links at CIO
http://www.cio.com/archive/011502/meter.html
the main article that goes into a lot of background of what Microsoft
expected to get from it and the reaction of several customers.
http://www.cio.com/archive/011502/meter_sidebar1.html
a more detailed look at three major reasons why Microsoft did this
http://www.cio.com/archive/011502/meter_sidebar2.html
a table summarizing the best choices based on your update frequency
and so on.
The Street looking at the financial impacts of LIcensing 6.0
http://www.thestreet.com/tech/ronnaabramson/10032470.html
including predictions from several analysts.
For more references, search strings such as
commentary microsoft subscription
provide a variety of references.
You can also get another 38 references by searching at
http://news.google.com/
and entering
microsoft licensing 6.0
many of these other news articles refer to the response by other
vendors - primarily Sun or Linux vendors - to the general Microsoft
approach to selling software. These same kind of responses may be used
by your competitors as well. Many of the sites are international as
well - if you have not considered that aspect, these may be helpful to
lead you to a solution that works internationally.
Benefits / Drawbacks:
Drawing on some of these articles, the primary characteristics of a
subscription plan are:
- a more "reliable" revenue stream (cost of ownership) to both the
vendor and the user. This aspect has advantages and disadvantages to
both sides. A buyer might wish to defer license fees in recession or
during other business problem periods. They have much less flexibility
to do so with a subscription plan. As the business expands, the buyer
might make do with fewer licenses as well for similar reasons.
- it may help "lock in" product upgrades. You get service and support
only for the "current" version under the subscription plan (with a
required transition period). From Microsoft's perspective, this may
get more users to adopt .Net or other new products. You may have the
same kind of plan if you consider this approach. However, many users
find product upgrades to be both a benefit and a disruption of their
business. The company I work for deferred the upgrade from NT 4 to
2000 by at least a year due to that kind of concern and the required
period to get all the supporting applications to be usable on the new
system.
- it can be a controversial approach to selling a product. The
Microsoft case certainly made the news. However, there are other
companies that have done this for some time. SPSS Inc comes to mind in
this respect. They used to sell their product for large time sharing
computers and required a pretty substantial fee for continued use. A
few of the articles I mentioned before refer to other companies that
have done this. If you don't mind offending a few possible users to
get the other benefits, a subscription may work for your company. Also
note that if your application is "really useful", expect some free
software group to form to produce a work alike product and cut into
your revenue model.
It may also be instructive to look at what other companies are doing
with software subscription models and how they sell it to their users.
A search with
software subscription advantages
brings up sites such as
http://www.openconnect.com/subscription.html
Open Connect which provides 3 month, 6 month, ... 24 month
subscriptions to their products.
http://www.bhrsoftware.com/erp/advantages.html
BHR Software has "perpetual", "usage", and "subscription" pricing of
their ERP system.
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/index/0,,612598-123112,00.html
Autodesk has a subscription plan available for their AutoCAD products.
and so on. Each of these sites will phrase the advantages of
subscriptions from the viewpoint of the customer. With a little
rephrasing of the words, you can get the disadvantages as well (e.g.,
good due to predictable costs => can't adjust costs ...).
Don't hesitate to ask for further information in a clarification
request. In particular, if there is some aspect I have missed - please
ask. There appears to be plenty of material available to draw from.
--Maniac |
