Licence Management covers a broad thematic area which ranges from the Gaming Industry to highly specialized numerical simulation codes from Independent Software Vendors (ISV).
The support for Licence Management in Grid environments currently is almost non-existent. The reason lies in the fact that most current middleware have an academic background where applications either do not require a license and/or where application licences are used in closed environments. In contrast industrial environments typically rely on commercial code basis of ISVs with an associated Licence Management -- usually FlexNet from Macrovision, which is the quasi standard in this area.
In addition, business models of most ISVs in this area are based upon customers paying for a fixed number of licences over a fixed time interval. On average those licenses are only used during a small part of this interval. The logical next step in Licence Management therefore would be a pay per use model, which implies a big change in the business models of most ISVs. The task at hand in this area therefore is quite complex from both technological and business perspectives.
© 2007 BEinGRID