INTERVIEW WITH JUSTIN BENSON, SR. VP BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT, INTRAWARE, INC.

"Options" sat down with Justin Benson of Reprise's partner Intraware to learn how they fit into the license and entitlement management marketplace.

Options: How would you describe Intraware?
Justin Benson: Intraware is the leading provider of on-demand digital asset delivery and entitlement management solutions. Our focus is on simplifying the business of digital delivery of licenses. In fact, 9 out of 10 Fortune 500 companies use our platform. Our client list includes industry leaders such as 3Com, Adobe, EMC, IBM, Hyperion, McKesson, Progress Software, and Sybase. We also have a partnership for License management with Reprise as well as strategic partnerships with Digital River for ecommerce and Akamai for delivery.
 

Options: What role does license management play with your business?
Justin: We hear a great deal of frustration from software vendors who are trying to solve intricate licensing problems with a hammer approach on one end of the spectrum, or with a package of highly customized professional services at the other. The hammer approach involves an expensive installed application that requires significant implementation efforts, tearing out of existing digital rights management technology, and very slow return on investment. In conjunction with a partner like Reprise, we have a hosted solution that can be implemented more quickly, and less painfully, than installed applications or custom development efforts. As a result, customers can experience a faster return on investment. The success of our hosted license management and delivery solution is further validation of the growing market opportunity to help our customers and prospects resolve licensing challenges.

Options: Can you be more specific about the types of licensing challenges your solution addresses?
Justin:  Yes. First, let me say that we’ve found that customers are faced with many significant licensing challenges that are confusing to them and have proven to be obstacles to adoption of an efficient license management system. As far as challenges that are faced; customers may have many licensing schemes through acquisitions, existing home-grown solutions, and in most cases their existing license generation and delivery system requires customer input, manual generation, and involves resource intensive updates.

Intraware offers license management and fulfillment for Reprise RLM taking the management and delivery burden from the independent software vendor/software publisher, providing them a single place to manage licenses and SW. In simple terms, we host solutions as customers move from legacy licensing solutions to new license management solutions like Reprise RLM. We are the single place to manage and deliver while customers make the transition.
 
In addition, hardware and network companies are becoming much more in tune with the value that software transactions can provide to their organization.
 
For all the companies, the pain tends to be very real and very much a “now” situation. Outsourcing to a legitimate on-demand solution is therefore very appealing.

Options: How does Intraware’s License Manager help customers solve these issues?
Justin: Intraware's SubscribeNet® License Manager streamlines and simplifies the license management processes for our customers. License Manager enables companies to leverage licensing technology through expanded electronic licensing delivery (ELD) and electronic software delivery (ESD) functionality. Intraware has implemented a unique, template driven process to allow technology companies to manage backend complexity while masking this to their end users through a single UI experience. With License Manager, customers have continuous access to the assets they have purchased over time through a secure online platform. They can obtain software, generate license keys, and manage their licenses without manual intervention from support. License Manager leverages the powerful Intraware entitlement management engine to provide precise access control to all software, licenses, and content to all customers, direct and indirect. In addition, we offer a range of complimentary solutions including software delivery, ecommerce, evaluation and channel services, which address a host of other challenges.

Options: How would you describe the relationship between Reprise Software and Intraware?
Justin: Firstly, it is clear to Intraware that the enterprise technology vertical is very open to an expansion of choices vs. the traditional or embedded players. Reprise is certainly a breath of fresh air in that respect. Reprise is a charter member of Intraware’s Preferred Rights Management Partner Program, which is designed for digital rights and software license management companies that want to implement best practices for operational aspects of software licensing management. Reprise’s current dedicated focus around DRM is very complimentary to our vision. As part of program, customers of Reprise RLM can host and deliver via Intraware SubscribeNet.
The marketplace has spoken clearly about its desire for customer-centric digital rights management solutions. Enterprise technology companies want to select technologies that are interoperable, flexible, and scalable with a return on investment measured in months not years. By providing our hosted services to core license management providers, like Reprise, we can address that mandate and help enterprise technology companies select the right feature set for their individual circumstances.
 

Thanks, Justin!