Cetrus Blog

Wouldn’t it be great if you suddenly paid less for software licensing? What if you could actually make money by simply using software? Hello profits and bonuses.

Beep beep beep! It’s time to wake up because those dreams can be made a reality. With the right data, you can turn software overhead costs into profit. The key to software billing is capturing application use activity states. You need data that shows exactly how active people actually are when using software, otherwise you risk inaccurate charges and unhappy customers. 

Could you answer (with 100% certainty) the following questions?

• What applications are installed on each machine in your company?
• Are all licenses used every day?
• When checked out, are applications always actively used?
• Do employees ever “park” applications on their computer to ensure they access a copy at all times?
• What times of the year do you need additional licenses due to high demand?

Welcome to the 2^nd blog post in our new series “Reports Showcase” where we show off a report and simply (and quickly) explain how it benefits your company!

Cetrus Process Meter (CPM) provides the most detailed application use data. So? Data means nothing without a way to visualize and analyze it. This post is the first in a new series we are calling “Report Showcase,” where we will show off a report and simply explain how it benefits your company.

Subscription licensing gives you the ability to balance (lower monthly cost) long-term licenses, with (higher monthly cost) short-term licenses for each application. The actual cost effectiveness of yearly subscriptions decreases if the licenses are idle from long periods of disuse.  However, the cost-effectiveness of a short-term license increases if used for a maximum of their license period and purchased on an as-needed basis.

The shift to subscription licensing has been driven by three key marketplace trends: customer demand for flexibility (shorter license term commitments); Wall Street for financial transparency; and software development organizations for lower support costs.

2018 is not just another 2017.  2018 is the year organizations realize they need different (and more) data than ever before to make informed application licensing decisions. In this post we’ll briefly touch on two of the major changes happening in the marketplace and what questions you need to ask to prepare your company for success.

Software is a significant and often growing portion of AEC firm costs. Changes to software costs can have a big impact on profitability. There are 3 main activities that should be part of every Finance and IT leader’s 2018 license planning.

Every year at renewal time, the question “How many licenses do I need?” drives the beginning of a frustrating data gathering process. For metered applications, the simple answer is to determine how your peak number of users compares to your number of licenses.  The reality is that (especially for firms consolidating licenses, using application suites, using several similar versions, or with expensive engineering applications) calculating an optimal answer is much more complicated. 

In a previous post we discussed some of the recent trends occurring in the Asset Management space, including applications in the cloud (here). This week, we’ll share our thoughts on the implications of cloud-based license keys on use analysis.