Will 2022 be the beginning of the end for Perpetual Licensing?

The Software Landscape is now ripe for vendors to lock-in Subscriptions and eliminate what (to them) are much loathed Perpetual Licenses ...

If your organisation - like most - is relentlessly moving workloads to the Cloud have you taken stock of your revised licensing position, or are those changes masked by the attraction of those fully provisioned platforms?

What you might find is the staple of perpetual licenses that you have acquired over the years are now in the throws of obsolescence, to be forever replaced by subscription only licensing.

And worse, all of this might erase your investments, and all be happening by stealth.

please complete our Quick Poll as you go ...

Perpetual licensing - loved by customers, loathed by vendors. Loved by customers because their investment is largely that - theirs. Loathed by vendors because their investment is - to a certain extent - lost. How is it lost? When a customer decides not to continue with maintenance and support, but is entitled to keep running the software.

Its not only the investment factor though, its also control.
​Vendors are way less comfortable sending their valued IP off to those reckless customers who might copy and over install their software - and the only way to keep across that issue is to enforce the much detested regimes of self-reporting and audits. Then, with the emergence of alternative support providers, other companies are taking revenue away from those vendors - all on the back of their own IP!

So what could be done to solve their predicament - enter Subscription Software!

What better way to secure your IP than run it solely on your own infrastructure (or infrastructure under your control) - think no leakage of software, auditable at will, chargeable based on actual consumption, and easy to scale up for more revenue! (or down you say? well that's a completely different proposition!)

And by offering some nominal discounts to get rid of (sorry - convert) those pesky perpetual licenses problem solved! No more residual entitlements in the hands if customers - just ongoing annuities, even when the next wave (aka cycle) of 'we need to get off the Cloud' thinking hits the boardroom and management - a simple move to on-premise subscriptions with integrated remote management and portals will be just the ticket!

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So make sure your cloud strategy includes a proper evaluation of licensing - ask where will I end-up following that journey from a commercial perspective? 

Everyone will say 'Better-off' ...

but you might find in the long term that's not necessarily the case.