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10 years later

March 12, 2014| | in category Company Comments Off on 10 years later

Today is X-Formation’s 10th anniversary in business.

It has been a challenging and very enjoyable journey so far, and we’re glad to be part of it. Some of our Customers have been on that journey for a long time; others are just starting out. Over all this time we’ve been committed to helping our Customers meet their diverse license management needs, because it’s always been invaluable for us to be able to see that the solutions and products we continuously deliver have a positive impact on the productivity of their business operations.

Our 10th anniversary indicates the transition from a youthful start-up to a proven company with an established track record. This event is a big success

given the fact that vast majority of technology start-ups struggling to bring new ideas to market fail within the first few years.

Constantly growing since 2004, we have expanded from our headquarters in Arhus, Denmark to establishing our fast-paced (and fun!) R&D center in 2008 in Eastern Europe’s Silicon Valley, Krakow, Poland, where we work with talented, dedicated specialists to develop the solutions you need. Today, we’re honored that more than 500 customers are taking advantage of our products and our commitment to make things better. Our customer base has grown so significantly, because dozens of professionals around the world are turning to our licensing solutions when looking for simple and flexible licensing solutions.

X-Formation’s products are used by small to large businesses around the world, including Fortune 500 companies and other billion-dollar corporations such as Siemens, Nokia, NASA, Honda, to name just a few. Our customers represent virtually every industry, from computer graphics, movie production, automotive, aircraft, aerospace, military, bio-informatics, to education, and more.

We appreciate the confidence you have placed in us and we’re grateful we can be a part of your success. We promise to make the most of our time, serving you the best we can.

Thank you for the opportunity to build these licensing tools for you.

Thank you for these 10 years.

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License Statistics imported usage: maximum data accuracy guaranteed

March 7, 2014| | in category License Statistics Comments Off on License Statistics imported usage: maximum data accuracy guaranteed

Ever since its launch in version 3.6, we’ve been thrilled with your response to License Statistics ’ ability to import log files. Just in case some of you haven’t discovered it yet: this feature lets you import and review log files from a number of license servers, including:

  1. LM-X extended log files denied requests and pay-per-use log
  2. FLEXlm/FlexNet denied request logs and encrypted report log files
  3. Reprise License Manager (RLM) denied request and report log files
  4. HASP license manager logs

How does it work and how can I benefit from it?

The obvious question you may want to ask is: “What’s in it for me?” Well, License Statistics imported usage reporting is especially useful when you need to reliably generate usage statistics for applications that run for a very brief period of time (such as compilers), and when you must havemaximum accuracyin the produced results.

Imported usage lets you import and review log files from a number of license servers, and is different from gathering realtime usage data in that realtime usage reporting refers to gathering realtime data and usage statistics from the license server at configurable time intervals, wheras imported usage reporting lets you gather all the existing information stored in the log files.

With imported usage, License Statistics doesn’t need to query the license server, so it doesn’t matter if the querying session started and stopped between two subsequent update intervals. Thus, logs record information about all activities no matter how long those activities lasted.

Since imported usage reporting doesn’t require a connection to the license server, it can be used for:

  1. Billing purposes, where the license servers are at the customer’s site and License Statistics software is at the vendor’s site, making this feature especially helpful for companies that do back-billing or pay-per-use billing.
  2. Analyzing datafromremote license serversin departments that run on separate networks.

Imported usage is another License Statistics feature that will help you unlock the doors to license optimization, letting you make sensible business decisions and allowing your company to save time and money.

We’d love to know what you think of our products so drop us a line .

Haven’t used License Statistics yet? Try our online demo or download a free trial now!

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Feel that a free 30-day License Statistics trial is not enough?

February 25, 2014| | in category License Statistics Comments Off on Feel that a free 30-day License Statistics trial is not enough?

We’re pleased to announce an exciting new License Statistics offer that is highly useful for monitoring the most crucial software in an organization.

Particularly attractive for small and medium businesses (SMBs), this new offer lets you purchase a 1-year subscription license and use License Statistics Realtime usage for monitoring and tracking 100 users and 2 license servers.

With this new option you can gain insight into the deployment of licenses across your organization and easily identify underused or even untouched licenses.Understanding your license usage will help you make smart business decisions regarding your software purchases, maximize software investment, and improve your company’s ROI. The price of this offer is very competitive, making it easier for start-ups and SMBs to start benefiting from all that License Statistics has to offer: simplicity of use, intuitive UI, robust functionality, and the best support in the industry. Act now and get your company to start saving!

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Rocket your license management to the next level with bulk licensing

January 20, 2014| | in category LAC License Activation Center Comments Off on Rocket your license management to the next level with bulk licensing

Our primary mission at X-Formation is to provide our customers with the ultimate software experience, and today we’re excited to announce a new License Activation Center (LAC) feature that delivers just that: bulk licensing .

How does bulk licensing work?

If you have end users that want to install your software on multiple machines, LAC’s new bulk licensing feature is for you. Managing multiple activation keys can be a hassle for these users, but with LAC’s new bulk licensing, you can make their lives a little easier. With bulk licensing, you specify the number of activations that will be allowed for the license order using a single activation key. Your users will be happy to find that they can reuseone activation keyto activate and download their licenses ontomultiple machines.

Don’t you just love to see your users smile, sitback, and relax?

Mission accomplished: customer satisfaction

We’ve introduced bulk licensing in direct response to your own mission to expand upon the self-service features you offer your customers. Our development team is always at the helm, ready to launch new missions and explore the outer reaches of improving our products to help you reach your goals.

Pleaseshare your thoughtswith us, and join us in our mission to improve our products and support services. See LAC in action by going to our online LAC demo , and take your license management to the next level!

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Cyber Dyne’s primary choice for software licensing

January 20, 2014| | in category LM-X License Manager Comments Off on Cyber Dyne’s primary choice for software licensing

Established in 2011, Cyber Dyne is a software and engineering company that helps companies assess how to maximize their performance by providing computational intelligence techniques applied in industrial solutions. Cyber Dyne is internationally famous for its open platform–KIMEME–used for multi-objective optimization applied in a number of fields of science, where optimal decisions need to be taken in the presence of trade-offs between two or more conflicting objectives. Cyber Dyne is a unique blend of strong academic background and cutting-edge innovations.

Why LM-X?

Cyber Dyne operates in the CAE market and needed an efficient tool that would fully protect and control their intellectual property. They quickly discovered that this need could be met with LM-X License Manager, which eventually became their primary choice for software licensing. A specific feature that Cyber Dyne particularly appreciated was a pay-per-use licensing model that captures license usage in a pay-per-use database. According to Cyber Dyne, this can be a potential opportunity to explore new business models in the future. Cyber Dyne have also stated they are pleased with LM-X License Manager because of an extremely good trade-off between the product’s price and versatility of features it offers. The overall experience with the product and X-Formation has been described as “really good”.

Take a minute to try the LM-X demo , and get a grip on your software license management.

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Gain the upper hand over license management

November 12, 2013| | in category LM-X License Manager Comments Off on Gain the upper hand over license management

It goes without saying that havingfull control over your license management system is necessary. Feeling out of your depth about getting the software up and running, or dealing with unneeded complexity of a license management system is something you can avoid. Read on… LM-X License Manager is a solution that offers a wide array of benefits both for Independent Software Vendors (ISVs), who clearly recognize the importance of the applications they develop, as well as for end users interested in getting their applications up and running as smoothly as possible. LM-X is one of the best solutions on the market today for many reasons:

1. Easy-to-use setup tools and automatic server discovery accelerate the software installation process, and thus, save you lots of time. On top of that, clear, complete documentation will smoothly guide you through each stage of the setup process (from installation to license activation).

2. You will be pleasantly surprised to discover how painless and straightforward transitioning to LM-X License Manager from legacy license management systems can be.

Customers that have transitioned from competing license managers to LM-X said it was virtually seamless.

3. With LM-X License Manager you will have easier access to other company products that offer you end-to-end solutions for license management that range from licensing your software, fulfilling license requests, to monitoring license usage. License Activation Center (LAC) provides centralized license management, whereas License Statistics is used to monitor license usage. Teaming LM-X with LAC delivers centralized software license management for vendors and online license activation for end users.

4. Software protected by LM-X License Manager has proved to be effective and reliable – otherwise it wouldn’t be deployed with Fortune 500 companies and other corporations active in the fields of production, education, aerospace or aircraft, to name just a handful.

Been there, done that…

Trust us — we’ve spent a great deal of time developing our products. Although they fulfill various needs, target diverse markets and have different features, what they share is simplicity of use, an intuitive UI, and functionality that has been attracting our customers’ attention for close to a decade.

Take a minute to try the LM-X demo ,and take your license management to the next level.

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Keep an eye on license reactivation patterns and override ISV

November 4, 2013| | in category LAC License Activation Center Comments Off on Keep an eye on license reactivation patterns and override ISV

Things happen. One day the operating system of your customer’s computer may change or his boss may announce that he is just about to reward his employee’s hard work with the all-new, fab laptop. While many people would probably be over the moon about getting a new, state-of-the art computer, some of them could start worrying. And these would probably be Independent Software Vendors (ISVs). Know why?

Contacting the software vendor and asking him to reactivate a license consumes the vendor’s time! And time means money, or to be more precise, wasted time means money loss. License reactivation becomes an issue when it comes to hundreds of rehosts every single month – doing it is just an arduous task for ISVs .

Is there any way out to save both the ISVs and the customer’s time and effort during license reactivation?

If the first thought that crossed your mind was “No”, you were in the wrong! The vendor can save lots of time thanks to the End User API that enables the end user’s application to connect LAC directly, without the need to involve the vendor in the meantime. End users can reactivate the license on their own if the vendor allows for this. Furthermore, thanks to LAC the software vendor gets more transparency of how often single customers ask for license reactivation. No matter what host id ISVs require end users to lock their licenses to, they can collect information about the values of particular host ids used by a customer.

Not having to contact the vendor in order to reactivate the license means keeping a firm grip on time and money. And, perhaps first of all, it means more customer satisfaction.

Get a sneak peek at the license reactivation process and download the online License Activation Center demo !

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Open the door to license optimization with License Statistics

November 1, 2013| | in category License Statistics Comments Off on Open the door to license optimization with License Statistics

If you’ve been tasked with reducing your company’s IT costs, improving your organization’s efficiency, or maintaining software license compliance, look no further. X-Formation’s complete solution for tracking and reporting software license usage, License Statistics , is the key toall doorsfor your company’s sound license management.

Door No. 1: Reduce software costs by 30%.

Why? Software purchases comprise from 20% to 35% of the typical IT budget. On average, companies overspend on software license agreements and maintenance by nearly 30%. Don’t let your company be average!

How? With License Statistics it’s as easy as opening a browser to see monthly usage percentages for chosen licenses. Once you gain insight into the number of licenses used during the periods of highest usage, as well as which licenses were underused or even untouched, you will quickly discover areas for potential savings. And savings can be enormous!

Door No. 2: Improve productivity.

Why?Employees are the cornerstone of each company. If they cannot access the software they need, they simply cannot do their work.

How?Thanks to License Statistics’ Denial Requests report, you can determine how many denials occurred in a given time period, which users were denied, how often denials took place and when they occurred.

Door No. 3: Plan your future licensing budget accurately.

Why? Many companies are not knowledgeable about their present software usage or their future software needs. Knowing which users use a given feature greatly helps you anticipate renewal costs and negotiate the cost of new licenses. Such knowledge also contributes to gaining meaningful insight into trends, costs and contract entitlements.

How? License Statistics makes it possible for you to be in the know about the features that are most utilized, license usage longer than 24 hours, features that are nearing expiration, and information on users using features on more than one host.

Knowing the doors you must unlock to find your path to license optimization is crucial to effective license management. If you want to have the key that will help you increase your company’s ROI, simply try the demo , see how well this key fits in, and open the door to success!

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How many license managers does your solution track?

June 1, 2013| | in category License Statistics Comments Off on How many license managers does your solution track?

When deciding upon a tool for tracking license usage, there are several important considerations to take into account. Perhaps one of the most important of these is license manager support.

A good solution will have the flexibility to monitor thousands of different software applications. Naturally, many of these will fall under FlexLM, FlexNet Manager, IBM LUM, and Sentinel RMS (which typically are supported by most license usage tracking solutions). But what about the others? There are a number of license managers out there that are not necessarily so popular (and which not all solutions can track), but nonetheless prevalent in use. This would include, for example, Dassault Systemes License Server (DSLS).

Their licenses can be quite expensive, so there really is no option for not tracking them. On the other hand, using several tools for tracking different license managers is not feasible. What is needed is one license management solution torule them all.

Then there is also the question of real-time monitoring vs. importing log files. Whether you will need one or the other very much depends on the license manager itself. However, because many of the most popular managers do both, you will more than likely want a solution that supports real-time monitoringandlog importation. Log importation also comes in handy when you want to view usage statistics from data that was gathered from remote license servers running on separate networks, or just even analyse old data that was gathered years ago.

By now you might be wondering if there is a solution out there that can actually handle the above-mentioned requirements. The answer is yes, and it’s License Statistics .

License Statistics does both real-time monitoring as well as log importation, including encrypted report logs, denied request logs, pay-per-use log files, and other report log files.

And as for license manager support,there’s no one on the market that does it better. License Statistics currently supports the following list of license managers. Please note this list is continuously being expanded.

  • LM-X License Manager
  • FLEXlm/FlexNet
  • IBM LUM
  • Reprise License Manager (RLM)
  • Sentinel LM/RMS
  • beta_lm
  • LS-DYNA
  • LICMAN
  • Mathematica License Manager (MathLM)
  • Dassault Systemes License Server (DSLS)
  • GNS
  • HASP License Manager
  • SmartPlant License Manager (SPLM)
  • RSoft
  • Felics
  • Sentinel Hardware Keys
  • CodeCollaborator

For more information on gathering type (real-time or imported) for any of the listed license managers, please see our documentation, Supported License Managers .

On top of that, License Statistics also lets you track license usage for custom applications by using an XML file .

So… how many license managers canyoucurrently track and monitor usage for?

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In the center of Europe’s Silicon Valley

May 1, 2013| | in category Company Comments Off on In the center of Europe’s Silicon Valley

Recently I was doing a little research on the growing tech scene in Krakow and came across an interesting PPT presentation showing some of the key IT companies in the city. The presentation gives a little background on Krakow, some IT figures, trends, success stories, and why companies like Google, IBM, and Motorola have established themselves in this city. But more importantly, what caught my eye is our company, X-Formation, listed as an international startup with back-office R&D (note this presentation is from 2010). And I thought to myself that it’s pretty nice to have been recognized by Ramon Tancinco, Cisco’s Head of Strategy for Central and Eastern Europe (author of this presentation) as an important company in Krakow’s scene.

Seeing that I figured it would be good to stop for a moment and take the time to reflect a little on our journey…

It was in 2008 that we decided to move our R&D center to Krakow (for many of the same reasons Google and others have migrated here), and looking back now, it was definitely a key decision in our company’s history. Since then we’ve been growing steadily and have gone from a team of about 5 to now over 30 people. Naturally, this has resulted in significantly advancing development of our two core products, LM-X License Manager and License Statistics , which, mind you, have now become forces to be reckoned with in the software licensing and license management world. But additionally, in 2011 we launched a completely new product, License Activation Center which has filled a large gap in the market for online license activation and distribution solutions. All that to say, it has truly been great experience (and one we are thankful for) working with some incredible talent from this city and also establishing ourselves, without a doubt for the long term , in this beautiful city also now known as Europe’s Silicon Valley.

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