Application producers gain seamless path to monetize their customers’ migration to the cloud

Maidenhead, UK, Oct 16, 2014 -- Flexera Software, the leading provider of next-generation software licensing, compliance and installation solutions for application producers and enterprises, announced today that  FlexNet Licensing, the market-leading software licensing solution used in over 20,000 applications, now enables application producers to easily migrate their enterprise applications to Microsoft Azure. Through the collaboration of Microsoft and Flexera Software, application producers can now migrate their applications to Azure while leveraging Flexera Software’s monetization and protection capabilities.

“As producers weigh their cloud strategies, they must select a pathway that gives them ultimate flexibility to monetize their applications in hosted environments and at the same time protect their intellectual property,” said Mark Bishof, President and CEO of Flexera Software. “Flexera Software has given producers the tools they need to leverage Azure to quickly address shifting preferences for cloud-based solutions, open up new revenue streams, and ensure they’re getting compensated for their software. We’ve also provided the framework to offer cloud-based usage management – a significant competitive differentiator as the market moves towards licensing-as-a-service.”

“Microsoft Azure is a safe, secure and flexible cloud platform ideal for ISVs who want to offer cloud-based licensing and monetization models to their customers,” said Mike Wickstrand, Senior Director of Product Marketing, Microsoft Azure. “Because Flexera Software’s licensing technology is embedded in many leading enterprise applications, the collaboration announced today means ISVs now have a tried, tested and trusted pathway to host those solutions in Azure. We are thrilled to collaborate with Flexera Software to develop this easy process to help ISVs get to the cloud.”

The FlexNet Licensing/Microsoft Azure collaboration provides producers a verified solution enabling their FlexNet Licensing-enabled, premise-born applications to seamlessly execute in Azure. By leveraging Flexera Software’s monetization engine in the cloud, producers will be able to increase their market share by capturing revenue from customers that are shifting their priorities to cloud-based solutions. Moreover, the integration will enable producers to capture additional revenue streams by attracting new customers through different usage models that align to different demand scenarios, such as burst of use, minutes of use, and the like.

Enterprises considering Azure now have proven options for expanding their applications to the cloud to reduce cost and IT burden, while increasing availability and minimizing the risk of software license noncompliance. Customers using applications with FlexNet Licensing that are looking to harness Azure's high-performance, elastic, on-demand computing environment can leverage an easy-to-follow pathway to initiate the migration process. Enterprises will also have a proof-of-concept process in place to migrate their other apps, such as home-grown software, to the cloud.

Moreover, many enterprises are concerned that deploying applications to the cloud will violate their software agreements or result in software audit true-up penalties due to unanticipated overuse. With the collaboration announced today, this risk is minimized. Enterprises can deploy their Flex-enabled applications to Azure and be assured they will remain in compliance with their software agreements.

“Our market is changing rapidly, and our customers increasingly demand that we provide flexible, hosted offerings that align to their evolving preferences,” said Prashant Ambe, Vice President, Development Services at  ANSYS, a leading provider of engineering simulation software. “It is clear to us that, with these new capabilities, Azure is a very attractive environment in which to host our applications, and Flexera Software has made it easy for us to get there.”