Much has been written in the business press recently about the global economy slipping into a recession. We think that a slowing economy presents an opportunity to make changes to how you license your software.

Of course many software vendors' revenues are booming right now - good for them. But not all vendors are as fortunate.  Every software vendor eventually experiences a slowdown at some point. When overall capital expenditures are declining it's almost inevitable that software vendors will feel the effects too. In addition to redoubling your efforts to improve your core products, the key to successfully riding out a recession is to support an adaptable and creative set of software licensing programs.

Regular readers of this newsletter will already know that the best way to stay flexible is to integrate a license manager within your software. Here are some ideas for your marketing/sales teams to create new programs to help you weather the storm.

New Pricing/Payment Models
Slowing sales mean that it's time to get creative with licensing.
If you are now selling only permanent licenses, consider going to time-limited licenses, both to add recurring revenue and to avoid "giving away" value. Try selling annual licenses to reduce the upfront cost of your licenses.  Price the annual licenses at a level that will increase your revenue over time.  Also consider a pay-per-use scheme for those customers who prefer it.

Modularize your High-Value Components
Some software vendors use an economic slowdown to decouple some of their high-worth software modules from their basic product so that overall prices can be reduced while still capturing higher revenue from those customers who require the more expensive options. The lower cost of the basic version can open up new accounts and increase your market share as well.

"Productize" what you used to give away for free
We've talked to a lot of companies recently that are not, strictly speaking, software companies at all.  It turns out that many technology companies often "throw in" software as a kind of "enabler" or loss-leader, focusing instead on collecting revenue from hardware sales or consulting fees. Let me suggest that wherever there is perceived value in these software applications, there is also potentially untapped incremental revenue.

Increase your Maintenance Subscription Rate
License Managers are very useful tools to ensure that your customers use only the software versions for which they have paid support fees.  Try using the version number field in your licenses to encode a support-expiration date in the form yyyy.mmdd (2009.0531).  Let a license manager compare it to the "release date" of each version so that your customers must remain current with their maintenance payments in order to access new releases.

Expand your Sales into New Regions
Use a license manager to restrict licenses by time zone or region to penetrate new markets at a much lower cost. Sales gains can be realized by charging a premium for licenses that allow use across wider geographies. Encourage additional license purchases from organizations whose software usage spans geographies.

Deepen Penetration within your Existing Customers
Often the best source of new license revenue is found within your existing customers. Not all users within a customer are the same. So try creating product classes that are specific to each different user type. A license manager makes it easy to build one binary that takes on different functional behaviors ("lite", "basic", "advanced" etc.), each one determined by the specific license key you issue. You can later sell upgrades by supplying an additional license key to turn on greater functionality. The pricing of these various classes of licenses should match the value that different user types ascribe to your software.  Examine software usage patterns to create a balanced set of licensing options that appeal to the widest audience within your best customers.

Find a lower-cost Licensing Vendor
While you are looking for new revenue sources, you might also consider making changes on the other side of the ledger. If you are tired of paying ever higher fees to use a third party license manager, maybe it's time to consider a lower cost alternative. Reprise Software is in the sweet-spot in this regard - providing a world-class license management system at a much more affordable price.