Over-hyping Licensing…

Seen this article recently? “Symantec has delayed its virtualized security system for Intel’s vPro platform because of licensing issues around Windows CE.” What about this one? “Windows Genuine Advantage suffers worldwide outage, problems galore.” What happens when you make it expensive and difficult to license your software? You simply make room for competitors who will fill the gap with reasonably priced software, whose license arrangements are a breeze…

I can tell you one thing for sure: the two main reasons I gave up on Vista (I still use XP for my Windows stuff) was because it was too expensive and the licensing requirements were even tighter than XP. I simply got tired of having to worry about re-activation every time I change something in the underlying hardware.

Companies like Symantec are obviously experiencing the similar things with Windows CE. Seriously, if you were developing a product that depended on a simple, reliable OS underneath for say booting to a diagnostic partition, why would you even consider anything but Open Source? Would you really want constant licensing ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ to be worrying about? Wouldn’t you rather spend the time on your own product?

I was listening to the MacBreak Weekly Podcast last week and Alex Lindsay was saying the same thing about Adobe - their overfocus on licensing of late (since aquiring Macrovision) has created a gap in the Market for new products like Pixelmator. Remember the good-ol-days… When Windows and Photoshop could simply be copied and as a result everyone used them, and they became the industry standards?

There appears to be a point when if you get too focused on licensing (damn it they have to pay for our software), customers simply start looking for less painful options - even if they’ve already sunk large amounts of money into licensing your product… Eventually, its just more hassle than its worth!

The old adage that Ubiquity is way you make serious money from software or a website has not changed. At least to some degree, you have to give it away…and its got to be a great experience from one end to the other - that’s just how it works. Do Microsoft and Adobe think it doesn’t apply to them now? Are they ‘past all that’?I’m convinced that if things don’t change, someone will start to eat their lunches too. Watch this space…

Originally from TechGripe! by Brett Ryland (26 August 2007).

(The Symantec article can be read at CNET New.com. The WGA article can be read at ArsTechnica.)