Flexera Software, the leading provider of strategic solutions for Application Usage Management for high-tech manufacturers and their customers, today announced a new version of FlexNet Producer Suite for High-Tech Manufacturers, the premier entitlement and compliance management solution enabling revenue growth and reduced supply chain costs across a broad range of high-tech products such as telecom and network equipment, industrial and building automation systems, and electronic test and measurement equipment. This new release provides enhancements to two products within the FlexNet Producer Suite: FlexNet Operations and FlexNet Embedded.
“We needed a licensing and entitlement solution that would enable us to protect the security of our intellectual property and our customers’ while also reducing manufacturing costs, but we didn’t want to develop it on our own — so we sought a partner with a best-in-class solution,” said Ryan Kenny, Product Marketing Manager at Flexera Software customer, CPU Tech. “With FlexNet Producer Suite for High-Tech Manufacturers, we can now easily upgrade and downgrade our customers without deploying additional hardware; and it lets us offer customers licensing and pricing models based on roles and features. As a result, we forecast clear savings in the operations area and we’ve also been able to bring products to market faster and tailor subscription licenses to meet customers’ unique requirements.”
The value in high-tech products is shifting to embedded software and software add-ons. As a result, monetizing device software and cost-effectively managing the software lifecycle for devices is now crucial to drive revenue growth and profitability for high-tech manufacturers. When used in conjunction with one another, FlexNet Operations and FlexNet Embedded provide high-tech device manufacturers with the industry’s only end-to-end solution enabling them to monetize and manage their products more rapidly and effectively throughout the product lifecycle, from initial device provisioning, to ongoing device lifecycle management.
FlexNet Operations Enhancements
FlexNet Operations provides high-tech manufacturers a comprehensive and proven entitlement and device lifecycle management system, supporting rapid product configuration, multiple license key generators, and a self-service portal. “High-tech device manufacturers can grow revenues more rapidly when they’re able to quickly provision their products to anticipate and respond to changing needs, and get them to market before their competitors,” said Bashyam Anant, Director of Product Management at Flexera Software. “The enhancements to FlexNet Operations give high-tech manufacturers tremendous ability to deliver flexible and reliable solutions for their customers more rapidly and at less cost.” Some of the enhancements in this release include:
New Revenue Models: FlexNet Operations now supports new revenue models, allowing high-tech manufacturers to penetrate new markets with device models that deliver capability at different price points to match customer demand, without having to develop new hardware models. Manufacturers and service providers can also dial up or down device capacity or capability to meet peak demand, effectively avoiding costly and time consuming hardware replacements and enabling faster response to market conditions.
Device Lifecycle Management: To reduce operational costs, FlexNet Operations now automates device lifecycle processes through self-service and silent device-to-back office interactions, including generating base product licenses, activating/de-activating devices, supporting and provisioning additional device add-ons, and returns/moves.
Backup and Restore Device Data: To minimize downtime in the event of data loss, FlexNet Operations now captures backup data about devices provisioned by a license server in order to restore device data from FlexNet Operations.
License Server Data Synchronization: FlexNet Operations’ new license server data synchronization capability allows manufacturers to gather device data managed on a license server. This can lower problem resolution time and support costs by knowing configuration parameters of a device for which an end customer is requesting customer support assistance.
FlexNet Operations is available on-demand as Software-as-a-Service, and on-premises.
FlexNet Embedded Enhancements
FlexNet Embedded enables high-tech manufacturers to unlock new licensing, pricing and packaging models for their embedded software, in order to reduce manufacturing costs and streamline the supply chain by reducing the number of unique physical devices and/or models needed. “The more manufacturers can configure their high-tech devices through embedded software, the greater flexibility they have to respond to rapidly changing market conditions with minimal cost and interruption,” said Anant. “The enhancements delivered in FlexNet Embedded give manufacturers tremendous ability to quickly deliver a wide variety of product configurations to suit evolving customer requirements.” Some of the enhancements in this release include:
License Server Data Synchronization: FlexNet Embedded now lets manufacturers gather device data managed on a license server from the customer environment into FlexNet Operations. As a result, service provider customers can now restore device data from the manufacturer’s back office to re-build a license service in case of catastrophic failure. In addition, manufacturers can also lower problem resolution time and support costs by knowing configuration parameters of devices for which an end customer is requesting customer support assistance.
Flexible Capacity Licensing: Manufacturers can allow customers to provision capacity either at the network level or for individual devices. Capacity at the network level can be shared and moved across many devices on a network, allowing more flexibility for the end customer.
Usage Monitoring: FlexNet Embedded can also be used to monitor capacity usage rather than enforcing it. End customers can deploy as much capacity as they need because manufacturers can monitor usage and bill back the customer. This is particularly useful for manufacturers that sell to service provider customers.
