LM-X Licence Manager Case Study - TLP Innovations

LM-X License Manager – Customer Case Study: TPL Innovations

March 18, 2022| | in category LM-X License Manager No comments yet

Client: TLP Innovations
Problem: How to support geographically dispersed customers
Solution: LM-X License Manager

Problem

TLP Innovations produces Train Load Predictor, a feature-rich software product that has been used extensively to analyze the Australian rail networks of Brisbane and Melbourne, as well as Sydney and Adelaide.

As they began marketing Train Load Predictor across the world, TLP Innovations realized they would need a licensing solution that could support geographically dispersed customers while minimizing their own manual overhead. They also needed a licensing solution that was appropriate for their current level of development, but would be capable of evolving with them as they began adding new features to Train Load Predictor and their company and client base grew.

How TLP Innovations Approached the Problem

Impressed by how capably LM-X License Manager could meet both their current needs as well as their anticipated future needs, TLP Innovations chose LM-X as their license management solution.

Matt Pattison, Consultant, Systemwide, said, “In addition to meeting our needs for today, LM-X meets our needs for tomorrow. It’s a stable platform, it’s very secure and we can steadily automate the license management process to a great extent, making our software as convenient as possible for the most important people, our users.”

Pattison praised the ease of working with LM-X, saying that the software “works without hassles, it’s well documented, and the support site is excellent.”

TLP Innovations appreciated that LM-X was capable of offering different solutions for different customers’ needs, while keeping license management simple.

“One feature we’ve found particularly useful is the ability to provide multiple license levels that unlock different software features, so we can support multiple editions of our software from one installer/source tree,” said Pattison.

TLP Innovations even found that LM-X was an affordable choice. “We took advantage of the Small Business Subscription offer, which made the price very competitive.” Pattison explained.

What It’s Like Now

TLP Innovations got everything they were looking for with LM-X License Manager’s advanced capabilities, and were impressed with X-Formation’s professional support and services as well. “We’ve been very happy with X-Formation and LM-X,” said Pattison. “The software is well documented, works as advertised, is regularly updated with new features, and the staff is friendly and helpful.”

With flexible options for geographically dispersed licensing, ease-of-use, and the ability to keep up with TLP Innovation’s rapid growth, along with outstanding customer care, LM-X was exactly the licensing solution that TLP Innovations and their customers needed.

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How to set up Autodesk Cloud license server monitoring

January 20, 2022| | in category License Statistics No comments yet

More and more, we’re finding that our customers’ heads are in the clouds–at least when it comes to managing their Autodesk licenses.

As a safe, secure way to store and access large amounts of data, it’s no wonder that Autodesk Cloud has become a popular licensing platform for many License Statistics users. With support for monitoring Autodesk Cloud license usage, License Statistics is keeping pace with today’s license monitoring needs.

If you’re ready to get monitoring and reporting going for your Autodesk Cloud license server usage, this article is for you!

What you’ll need

  1. Your Autodesk Cloud administrator credentials
    You’ll need your Autodesk Cloud administrator credentials to enable remote monitoring that gathers information about your Autodesk Cloud licensed products, number of licenses, and users assigned to the licenses.
  2. License Statistics Agent
    To gather usage data for License Statistics reports, you’ll need to install License Statistics Agent on the end-user host machines you want to monitor.

Now that you have what you need, let’s get started setting up your Autodesk Cloud license server for monitoring and reporting in License Statistics. We’ll break down the process into a few simple steps, which are all done using the license server setup wizard in the License Statistics UI:

  1. Add a new Autodesk license server or edit one you’ve already added
  2. Enable remote monitoring
  3. Enable end-user monitoring using License Statistics Agent

Add a new Autodesk license server or edit one you’ve already added

To begin, you can either add the Autodesk license server to License Statistics or edit an Autocad license server you’ve already added to License Statistics. (If you aren’t familiar with adding and editing license servers, see License Statistics help for complete instructions.)

    1. Open License Statistics, and go to Administration > License Servers.
    2. If you’ve already added the Autodesk license server for monitoring, click the pencil icon at the end of the row to edit the license server;
      Or
      If the license server hasn’t been added to License Statistics yet, click Add to add a new one.
      License Statistics - Add new license
    3. The General tab of the License Server setup dialog lets you define the license server. If you’re adding a new license server, enter (at a minimum) the license server name and select Autodesk as the license server type. The remainder of the entries in the General tab are optional.
      Create license server
    4. Click Next to go to the Remote Monitoring tab. (The Next button won’t be available until you’ve entered the required information in the General tab.)

Enable remote monitoring

In order to gather information about your Autodesk Cloud licensed products, number of licenses, and users assigned to the licenses, you’ll need to enable remote (HTTP) monitoring for your Autodesk license server.

  1. In the Remote Monitoring tab, toggle on “Enable Remote Monitoring.”
  2. By default, the query interval is set to 1 minute. You can change this to query the server less often if you like.
  3. Under “Connection,” enter a valid username and password for your Autodesk Cloud platform (https://manage.autodesk.com) administrator’s account.
    Enable remote monitoring
  4. If you want to check that your connection to Autodesk Cloud is working, click Verify at the bottom of the Remote Monitoring tab. However, this step isn’t required; verification happens automatically when you save the license server.
  5. Click Next to go to the End User Monitoring tab.

Enable end-user monitoring using License Statistics Agent

Now, we’ll enable end-user monitoring using License Statistics Agent groups. If you’re unfamiliar with using groups and want to learn more, see License Statistics help for complete information about creating and managing groups. (You can see a list of all License Statistics Agents in use by reviewing the Agents page, found under the Administration menu.)

  1. In the End User Monitoring tab, toggle on “Enable End User Monitoring.”
  2. From the Agent Groups drop-down, select one or more existing agent groups or add your group(s) on the fly by entering a name in the Agent Groups field.
    Enable end user monitoring
  3. Click Save and Close to return to the License Servers page.

And that’s it! Your Autodesk Cloud license server monitoring is complete, and after a minute or so, starts automatically.

The agents monitor Autodesk applications on their hosts, including hostname, username and application name, along with the date the session was started/stopped, and deliver the data to License Statistics. License Statistics takes care of the rest, combining the data from remote monitoring with the data received from the agents and displaying the statistics in its usual easy-to-read grids and reports.

How License Statistics displays cloud users

There may be more than a single matching username on both the host side and the cloud side; for example, a single username (e.g., “administrator”) can use multiple cloud accounts and a single cloud account can be associated with multiple usernames (e.g., “administrator,” “system,” and “jsmith”).

In the User report, you can view the number and details for all cloud users that match usernames on the host for the selected user.

The number of matching users is shown under “Cloud Users” along with a show/hide icon. Click the icon to show/hide the details for the matching users.

Current usage - License Statistics

When toggled on, a “Cloud Users” grid appears below the General Information area. For example, the following illustration shows details for one matching cloud user.

Autodesk Cloud user - license reporting

Get to know License Statistics

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Let us know what you think!

We hope this article was helpful in walking you through configuring License Statistics to track your Autodesk Cloud license server usage. You can learn more by visiting the License Statistics page, and as always, feel free to contact us at support@x-formation.com with your questions or comments.

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X-Formation - Year in Review

X-Formation – Year in Review

December 22, 2021| | in category Company, License Statistics, LM-X License Manager No comments yet

“Challenges are what make life interesting and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful.” — Joshua J. Marine

It’s been an amazing year, full of challenges and successes. Here at X-Formation, our team has been working hard to improve and expand on the capabilities of License Statistics and LM-X License Manager, devoted to helping your business prosper with effective, cost-saving license management solutions.

Now that the year is coming to a close, we’d like to thank you, our customers, for your continued cooperation. We cannot do this without you. All the improvements and new features we’ve delivered during 2021 are based on your invaluable feedback.

Let’s reflect on what we’ve accomplished together over the past year, as we set our sights on making the coming year even better.

License Statistics Achievements

License Statistics users have seen many major new features over the past year, with some of the most significant among them Custom Application Monitoring, streamlined reports, and support for two additional license managers.

Read on to find out more about these capabilities and how they can help you to stay on top of your license management.

Custom Application Monitoring

Many of our customers have been seeing immediate benefits from employing Custom Application Monitoring to track license usage for their end-user applications, even when the application has no license server or log file. We implemented this feature in response to your needs to expand your license tracking abilities and make informed decisions when budgeting for desktop applications.

This new feature leverages License Statistics Agent to gather usage information—such as the time and duration of usage, number of instances used and by which users and hosts—for any user that starts a configured application on any end-user host. The agents then pass the data along to License Statistics for presentation in its usual reports.

With Custom Application Monitoring, you can learn everything you need to know about the usage of any end-user application, helping you stay on top of all your license management needs.

Simplified, streamlined reports

Less is more, with streamlined statistics reporting that both reduces the number of reports and more clearly divides realtime and historical statistics.

With this new structure, you can more quickly drill down to answer specific questions, such as who is consuming licenses in realtime; which users have been denied access to licenses and when; and how one feature’s license usage compares to others.

This all adds up to time savings and enhanced understanding of your license management needs, so you can zero in on how to best optimize your licenses to increase productivity and reduce costs throughout your organization.

Additional support for license managers

With the addition of support for two new license managers, bringing the number of supported license managers to nearly 30 different types, we’re broadening our ability to serve our user community’s diverse needs. Our newly supported license manager types include:

  • Zoo License Manager, with support for remote and imported data sources; feature versioning; and license borrowing (imported data only)
  • CodeMeter Network License Server (remote data sources only)

Once again, we’ve been listening to what you need and responding with all of these valuable new developments, along with the multitude of other fixes and enhancements made to License Statistics in the past year.

But wait—there’s more!

LM-X Achievements

X-Formation’s developers were also bustling during this past year to make sure that LM-X License Manager is reliable and packed with all the features you need to license your software with flexibility and confidence. Among the LM-X team’s most significant accomplishments are the addition of a new “upgrade” license type, support for Linux ARM, and a plethora of stability and performance improvements.

You can find out more about these LM-X advancements below.

Upgrade licenses

Our new “upgrade” license type supplants the “additive” license type, as a much-improved solution. Upgrade licenses let you add licenses for software features that your customers buy after the initial purchase of a license, without changing the original license.

Upgrade licenses increase the license count of exclusive licenses by a particular number of licenses, while simultaneously being completely transparent to the client. This approach allows for greater flexibility in handling license add-ons than were possible with additive licenses, because additive licenses are seen as a separate license pool of the same feature.

We hope you’ll find life a little easier when it comes to license upgrades for your customers, thanks to this new feature.

Support for Linux on ARM

Many customers have asked for support for the Linux ARM 64-bit platform, and we’ve delivered. Linux ARM has been gaining in popularity for high-performance computing (HPC) due to the platform’s exceptionally low energy consumption while maintaining high processing power.

Stability and performance improvements

Over the past year, we’ve made huge leaps in stability and performance. You’ll find that the license server is able to serve many more clients under even greater loads, and LMX_GetLicenseInfo handling performance has been particularly improved.

We do it all for you!

With all the hustle and bustle of bringing 2021 to a close and ushering in 2022, we are filled with gratitude for all of our customers. You bring purpose and satisfaction to every day, knowing that our work is helping to make your business thrive.

With the pandemic continuing to bring challenges into both our business and personal lives, our sincere wish is that you enjoy gathering with your loved ones over the holidays while staying safe and healthy, and we look forward to continuing our collaboration with you in the coming new year.

Happy holidays, and a happy and prosperous New Year!

Henrik Goldman
X-Formation Founder and CEO

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Public holiday notice for 2023

Sticky | December 16, 2021| | in category Company Comments Off on Public holiday notice for 2023

Dear Customers,

We wish to advise that our office in Krakow will be closed on the following days during 2023:

January 6 (Friday)
April 10 (Monday)
May 1 (Monday)
May 3 (Wednesday)
June 8 (Thursday)
August 15 (Tuesday)
November 1 (Wednesday)
December 25 (Monday)
December 26 (Tuesday)

Our sales staff will be unavailable on this day, including both phone and email, so responses to your queries may be delayed.
Thank you for your understanding,

X-Formation Team

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License Statistics v6.14 introduces simplified, streamlined reporting

License Statistics v6.14 introduces simplified, streamlined reporting

November 19, 2021| | in category License Statistics No comments yet

With License Statistics version 6.14, we’re making your life even easier, with simplified, streamlined reports that more clearly divide realtime and historical statistics and reduce the number of reports, while still providing all the information you need to make wise decisions when it comes to license management.

The improvements to License Statistics reports add up to time savings and enhanced understanding, helping you to:

We understand that regardless of the benefits reaped when changing the user interface of an application you’ve gotten used to, getting accustomed to a shift can take time. To help you with the learning curve, we’ll be maintaining a legacy navigation menu, which you can find at the bottom of the regular menu, for the next few releases of License Statistics. Simply click on the link you were using with previous releases, and you’ll be automatically routed to the new page, with all settings adjusted to show the details you’re looking for.

Our goal is to continuously improve License Statistics in ways that are beneficial for you and directly address the feedback you give us. We’d love to hear how you like the new License Statistics reporting structure and the many other new features and enhancements we’ve delivered with License Statistics v6.14! As always, please feel free to contact support@x-formation.com with any questions. We’ll be delighted to serve you.

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LM-X License Manager Case Study - Schindler GmbH

LM-X License Manager – Customer Case Study: Schindler GmbH

October 18, 2021| | in category LM-X License Manager No comments yet

Client: Schindler GmbH
Problem: Lack of flexibility of licensing schemes
Solution: LM-X License Manager

Problem

A software vendor based out of Germany, Schindler GmbH is the developer of S-Anywhere, a highly regarded software platform that includes modules for maintenance and repair management, facility management, tool management and inventory recording, as well as RFID technology for planning, recording and evaluating inspection rounds.

Like many software providers, Schindler GmbH needed a flexible licensing solution that could support many different licensing models, particularly network and node-locked licensing.

Schindler GmbH tried using HASP HL dongles from Thales, but this solution fell short of serving their customers’ needs. As Markus Schindler, IT Engineer, explained, “IT guidelines of our customers often prohibit the use of hardware dongles,” because many of their customers use outsourced or virtual servers.

How Schindler GmbH Approached the Problem

Schindler GmbH realized that they needed a different licensing solution that was able to accommodate their customers’ needs. “We searched for an alternative, and X-Formation’s LM-X License Manager offered the flexibility we were looking for,” said Schindler. LM-X provided Schindler GmbH with the licensing solution that not only had all the features they needed to achieve their desired results, but made software license management easy.

What It’s Like Now

Not only is LM-X a superior licensing solution with robust, bundled features that solve nearly any licensing needs—X-Formation provides exemplary customer service as well.

Schindler praised, ”Documentation and support was very good, and X-Formation pays attention to customers’ needs.” Schindler concluded,“LM-X is flexible and offers all the license types we need. Furthermore, if we have any questions, the X-Formation support team helps quickly.”

With quality software and fast, professional support in addition to providing flexible options for dongle-free licensing, LM-X was exactly the licensing solution that Schindler GmbH and their customers needed.

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License Statistics v6.13 Introduces Custom Application Monitoring

License Statistics v6.13 Introduces Custom Application Monitoring

September 7, 2021| | in category License Statistics No comments yet

With the introduction of License Harvesting in our previous release of License Statistics, we expanded the capabilities of License Statistics to be able to monitor applications in order to detect and automatically release idle licenses, cutting down on underutilized licenses and associated costs. So why not take it a step further and deliver statistics about the applications being monitored?

With our newest development, Custom Application monitoring, we’ve done just that, evolving License Statistics from a tool limited to monitoring license servers to a system that can monitor and manage application usage. With the combination of Custom Application monitoring and License Harvesting (which can optionally be used for any monitored application), License Statistics now offers a complete solution for monitoring, tracking, reporting and managing usage of any application—even those without a license server or log file—across your entire company.

When a user starts up an application configured for Custom Application monitoring, License Statistics Agents gather the application’s usage information, such as user and host names, time and duration of usage, number of instances used, etc. The usage data is passed along to License Statistics for presentation in its usual reports, with each instance represented as a used license, regardless whether the application is licensed.

Custom Application monitoring makes it easy for your company to stay on top of:

  • Who is using the application, and where and when it’s being used
  • How often your company is using the application overall, so you can eliminate software that’s not being used
  • Whether the application is being used according to your company’s set rules; for example, limits based on working hours (used in combination with License Harvesting, you can even force an application to be unavailable outside of specified hours)

What’s more, setting up Custom Application monitoring is a breeze. See the License Statistics documentation for complete details, and as always, please feel free to contact support@x-formation.com with any questions. We’ll be delighted to serve you.

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LM-X License Manager Case Study - Enventive Engineering Inc

Customer Case Study: Enventive Engineering, Inc.

July 30, 2021| | in category LM-X License Manager No comments yet

Enventive Engineering, Inc. finds the full-featured, low-cost license management software its customers need with LM-X License Manager.

Client: Enventive Engineering, Inc.
Problem: Lack of critical features in its existing license management software.
Solution: LM-X License Manager

Problem

Enventive Engineering, Inc., helps mechanical product industries benefit from the most recent advances in variational computation by making complex tech simple to use. Companies use Enventive tolerance analysis software to accelerate and simplify their product development process workflow to foster innovations and build the mechanical products of the dynamic data and AI century.

At first, Enventive used an economical license manager for its software products, which worked well enough until customers insisted they needed floating licenses to best support their team-based approach to using the software. The old license manager could not support floating licenses, nor could it support the need for annual licenses with a customizable renewal date. Enventive’s customers wanted the ability to purchase new licenses on different dates while maintaining a single renewal date for all licenses.

Enventive realized that it needed a truly full-featured and flexible license management system. However, the license solution it was considering was not only expensive, but the product vendor was well known for devoting little time and attention to the needs of small businesses. It was crucial that Enventive provide its customers with the licensing options they needed. It also wanted a flexible solution that would grow with it, and a vendor that would be responsive to its needs.

How Enventive Approached It

After extensive research, Enventive found one licensing product that outshone the others: X-Formation’s LM-X License Manager. LM-X offered the features the company needed, with greater flexibility and a lower cost than comparable products.

Enventive was delighted with the results of its evaluation. Ralph Gifford, President and CEO of Enventive Engineering, said, “With LM-X, not only did we get all the features we needed, we got a responsiveness to requests for other features that was unbelievable. All we needed to do was mention that we’d like to see a particular feature, and the next thing we knew, X-Formation was handing us a new version of LM-X with the very features we’d asked for.”

While LM-X provided customizable renewal dates and a choice of node-locked and floating licenses, Enventive was particularly impressed with two other key features: Borrowed Licenses and Grace Licenses (both used to make licenses available when users are disconnected from the network). “It’s of the utmost importance that your licensing solution works for your customers,” Mr. Gifford explained. “Our customers see that we have the ability to offer these licensing options, and they are really impressed.”

What It’s Like Now

The LM-X License Manager helped Enventive supply its customers with the licensing options they needed at a lower cost than it would have paid for any other comparable solution. For Enventive and its customers, LM-X License Manager proved to be the best license management solution thanks to its extensive feature set, flexibility, pricing, and product support.

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A Year of License Statistics in Review

A Year of License Statistics in Review

July 8, 2021| | in category License Statistics No comments yet

The past 12 months have seen major upgrades and enhancements in License Statistics, including powerful new features and redesigned monitoring tools for increased control and usability. Here’s why you should be using the latest version of License Statistics.

Over the last year, we’ve delivered important updates and enhancements to License Statistics to help you get even better control over your software license budget. The latest version of License Statistics includes:

  • License Harvesting with automatic license release.
  • The License Statistics Agent, enabling new features such as Autodesk named user license tracking.
  • Feature and User Reservations.
  • API enhancements.
  • New and enhanced reporting tools.

Here’s what you need to know about the key features released in the past year.

License Harvesting with Automatic License Release

License Harvesting helps you eliminate the extra costs associated with purchasing spare licenses by monitoring users’ machines to see when licenses are unused (e.g. due to meetings, coffee breaks, etc.). Every company has peak days when the highest number of licenses are used. License Harvesting helps you monitor and respond to such peaks by reducing idle license consumption and automatically return those licenses to the available pool.

Automatic remote license release for LM-X and Flexnet license servers was introduced in License Statistics v6.10. This gets idle licenses back into the available license pool just after the Agent has closed the end-user application. No more waiting or manual intervention required – simply set it and forget it.

See the License Harvesting documentation for more information.

The License Statistics Agent

License Statistics Agent is a License Statistics add-on tool that enables client usage monitoring for software using locally running applications that must be tracked on the clients themselves. License Statistics Agent communicates between these applications and License Statistics, running as a service in the background.

License Statistics Agent currently supports monitoring for Autodesk license usage and Autodesk named user licenses, and is currently available for Windows installations.

See the License Statistics Agent documentation for more information.

User and Feature Reservations

Customer enhancement requests are one of our top priorities. Several customers had requested a way to view User and Feature reservations to further simplify software license asset management tasks. The User and Feature Reservations pages were the result.

The User Reservations page provides an overview of all reservations across all features and license servers for a selected user or group. You’ll find the User Reservations page under the Users section in the left navigation pane. (See the documentation for User Reservations for details.)

The Feature Reservations page provides an overview of all reservations for a selected license server and feature. You’ll find it under the Features section in the left navigation page. (See the documentation for Feature Reservations for more details.),

API Enhancements

Not only did we release a significant update to the License Statistics API with API v2, but we released the first version of API v3.

With API v2 came enhancements making it much cleaner and easier to use. New endpoints were implemented to make it even more extensive. The API v3 release lays the groundwork for future API enhancements and releases. It includes extended reports that allow extended selection of all license servers and features.

See the API documentation and interactive API tool documentation for more information.

New and Enhanced Reporting Tools

We were also quite busy this past year building new reporting tools and enhancing / extending current ones.

User Usage History report now gives you the ability to view license usage history by a selected user or group (available only with the new licensing model). The report makes it easy to select the user/user group for which you want to view usage history and specify time intervals to include in the results.

We are devoted to simplifying your license administration tasks through detailed reporting and complete automation of routine tasks – including recapture of idle licenses that would otherwise cost you hundreds of lost productivity hours every month.

As always, please contact support@x-formation.com with your questions. We’ll be delighted to serve you.

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License Statistics Case Study - LuK

Customer Case Study: LuK

June 9, 2021| | in category License Statistics No comments yet

LuK leverages License Statistics to reduce software license costs by analyzing floating versus single license use provided by License Statistics comprehensive data gathering solution.

Client: LuK
Problem: High Software License Costs
Solution: License Statistics

Problem

LuK, a member of the Schaeffler Group, is an renowned manufacturer of clutch and transmission systems, torque converters, and dampers for cars and tractors. One in every four new cars produced in the world carries a LuK clutch.

Founded in 1965 and headquartered in Buhl, Germany, LuK Has more than 9,500 employees at 18 sites around the world, producing 14 million clutches, 4 million lock-up clutches, and 5 million dual mass flywheels.

The Schaeffler Group is comprised of the well-known brands LuK, INA, and FAG. It is a leading manufacturer and supplier of ball and roller bearings, clutch and clutch releasing systems, and engine and transmission components.

LuK not only produces automotive hardware. Its 50-person software engineering team builds software for transmission technology using such specialized software tools as MKS, ETAS, Doors, Matlab, and Tricore. IT Coordinator Oliver Winkler wanted an accurate picture of floating versus single license usage to know what mix of licenses they really needed.

How LuK Approached It

X-Formation offered LuK a trial period to determine whether License Statistics would solve its business problems. “The trial was easy-going and we saw a lot of impressive new features, which led us to the decision to invest in it,” said Winkler. “The Web-based standard reports, easy installation, and straightforward configuration were what sold us on the product.”

After only six months’ use of License Statistics, Winkler had collected enough statistical data to precisely identify which software tools could be covered by floating licenses and which needed single licenses to support power users.

What It’s Like Now

“We were able to achieve significant license cost savings by adjusting the number of floating licenses,” Winkler added. “At the same time, I was able to quickly and in accurate detail see what licenses were required at any given time to prevent development delays.”

Thanks to License Statistics, LuK now effectively monitors its license usage to accurately plan license purchases while avoiding development process disruptions.

Winkler concluded, “We have used License Statistics for evaluating our software tool licenses. We have never experienced a problem with it and the level of support is very good.”

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