Opportunity: Software Licensing Revenue Recovery

A high number of software vendors continue to rely on traditional software licensing models, and most of them know that customers are using their software well beyond the scope of their licensing agreements, according to a new survey conducted by Flexera Software, a provider of software licensing-management tools. For software vendors and, by extension, their channel partners, the lack of visibility into how software is being used creates revenue leakage, yet most software vendors don't seem to be doing much to plug the gap. The study, based on a survey of 580 professionals working at software vendors, finds that the majority rely on home-grown systems to track licensing. On the plus side, the survey finds that software vendors are optimistic about future growth, thanks to the rise of mobile computing, virtualization, cloud computing and the Internet of things. But given the complexity of the licensing schemes involved, many vendors may not be in a position to take advantage of those opportunities. That may be disappointing to channel partners that often prefer to team up with software vendors based on the amount of licensing revenue they can generate per customer engagement.