September 09, 2008 08:30 ET

Acresso Software Delivers First Combined Entitlement and Compliance Management Suite

Latest FLEXnet Release Enables Software and Hardware Producers to Reduce Audits and Improve Revenue Predictability; Enterprise IT Customers Can Proactively Manage Compliance and Avoid Expensive Budget Surprises

SCHAUMBURG, IL--(Marketwire - September 9, 2008) - Acresso Software today announced a significant expansion to its FLEXnet entitlement and compliance management suite. This latest release is the first packaged product suite delivering a complete compliance and entitlement management process for software and hardware producers -- licensing, entitlements, usage and delivery -- resulting in stronger compliance with licensing agreements, regardless of licensing system used.

Minimizing the producer's need for costly audits and improving revenue stream predictability, the information generated by FLEXnet can easily be delivered directly to enterprise IT customers. This provides ongoing insight into actual usage and a means to proactively manage their own compliance with software licensing agreements to avoid costly budget surprises that often result from audits and effectively plan IT investments.

More than 3,000 software/hardware producers have shipped $85B of FLEX-enabled software and continue to release over $15B of new FLEX-enabled applications every year.

"In today's economy, software and hardware producers need to ensure that all revenues resulting from their enterprise customers' software usage can be captured," said Amy Konary, Research Director Software pricing, licensing and delivery at IDC. "To do so, some producers revert to expensive and time-consuming physical audits, which are often viewed as invasive and disruptive by their customers and address the symptom of non-compliance rather than the problem of poor license management," adds Amy. "The FLEXnet Solutions from Acresso Software can help software and hardware producers implement proper license management in the first place, while providing them with on-going information about both entitlements and usage."

The latest capabilities include:

--  FLEXnet Compliance Monitor, a new addition to the FLEXnet product
    family, provides software/hardware producers with an actual view of their
    customers' software usage without the need for expensive and time-consuming
    physical audits. For the first time, software/hardware producers can shift
    the conversation from audits to simply reviewing a shared set of facts to
    understanding actual software usage. Specific details are available at
    www.acresso.com/compliance.
    
--  The latest release of FLEXnet Operations integrates fragmented or
    manual back-office entitlement systems, such as CRM systems or excel
    spreadsheets; this is a common challenge in the industry due to mergers and
    acquisitions. Moving to a single entitlement system reduces the costs of
    supporting multiple systems. Specific details are available at
    www.acresso.com/fno.
    

"The Entitlement and Compliance Management Solution from Acresso Software has helped Alcatel-Lucent improve the way we view and administer entitlements. Now our license generators can be consolidated into a single system, saving us time and money while giving customers a more consistent experience," said Manish Sharma, Program Director, Alcatel-Lucent. "We worked with Acresso as they developed this new release that will not only give us reports that detail our customers' entitlement activities, but more importantly enables us to better serve our customers by providing them a clearer view into how their departments use our products so they can better manage their own entitlements. We will also be able to dramatically reduce the time it requires us to give permission to use the requested application from a few days to a few minutes."

"Software/hardware producers need to use their own medicine," said Roger Bottum, senior vice president of Marketing, Acresso Software. "Many often rely on manual, fragmented processes for managing their relationship with their customers, especially around software usage and entitlements. These new releases provide key new capabilities to automate these areas on both sides of the equation to facilitate a much more rational approach to entitlement and compliance."

About Acresso Software

Acresso Software provides solutions that power the business of software for multiple customer segments, including hardware and software producers, engineers and developers, helping them uncover revenue opportunities, streamline their infrastructure and reduce costs. The company's proven solutions, including the FLEXnet and InstallShield product lines, have been simplifying the business relationship between software and hardware producers and their enterprise and government customers for more than 20 years. Acresso maximizes the value of the software the world develops and uses. For more information, please go to: www.acresso.com.