Comments on: Microsoft Quietly Closes Software Licensing and Protection Service

By: Duncan Bayne

Duncan Bayne — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 03:53:32 +0000

Why wait for Microsoft to roll something out? As Spolsky has said in the past, this sort of stuff is just fire & motion.

If you’re sitting around with your hands in your pockets waiting for something that Microsoft may or may not release – or worse, scrabbling to rewrite your licensing architecture to work with whatever they do release – then your core product is suffering.

Just buy a reputable solution and get on with developing your core product.

(Disclaimer: the company I co-founded produces the OffByZero Cobalt software licensing solution for .NET. See https://cobalt.offbyzero.com/ for details.)

By: computer support

computer support — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 03:01:27 +0000

what they will do we are watching and waiting

By: The Far Edge » Blog Archive » Irish Startup Reboots Microsoft Software Licensing and Protection Services Unit

Tue, 09 Jun 2009 22:38:08 +0000

[...] 2008, Microsoft stopped accepting new SLPS customers, which we got confirmation of when we researched and reported the quiet shut-down. SLP Services was a software licensing suite that provides developers with the [...]

By: Tech Crunch | Irish Startup Reboots Microsoft Software Licensing and Protection Services Unit | Your Gadget Review

Tue, 09 Jun 2009 16:41:10 +0000

By: Irish Startup Reboots Microsoft Software Licensing and Protection Services Unit

Irish Startup Reboots Microsoft Software Licensing and Protection Services Unit — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 14:10:45 +0000

By: Jeremy Soref

Jeremy Soref — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 09:42:19 +0000

Sure, homegrown solutions may be attractive, but when you factor in all the costs – lost opportunity, security and licensing expertise plus TCO moving forward – many ISVs could do much better with a commercial solution. After all, security and licensing are side issues, and not within the typical ISV’s core competence.

Check out Aladdin’s HASP SRM. You can download it for free:

http://www.alad...order/form.aspx

By: delta

delta — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 03:03:35 +0000

oh, my god!

By: Maser of deaster

Maser of deaster — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 10:57:17 +0000

We are using the Solutions from SafeNet also. We use SafeNet now more than 15Years and are happy that. We honestly looked at the competition solutions and there is nothing that i find out that actual beats the SafeNet Solutions.

So yust my 2cent for today…

By: Christian Olsson, ByteShield, Inc.

Christian Olsson, ByteShield, Inc. — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 20:48:21 +0000

From Microsoft’s statement its clear that they will continue to use software protection on their own products “We will continue to create and improve our own internal licensing and protection” but will no longer sell SLP solutions to ISVs because “the return on investment in this area is less than…”

There may be many reasons that the SLPS initiative was less successful than Microsoft hoped but some number of ISVs now need a different solution – one that is better, cheaper and easy to convert over to – one such solution is ByteShield’s – see the whitepaper at http://www.byte...epaper_0005.pdf.

By: Rob

Rob — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 20:32:18 +0000

They couldn’t compete cost-effectively with download.com/upload.com. Finally, one area that MS won’t be trying to take over (for now).

By: Licensing Guy

Licensing Guy — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 18:05:00 +0000

SafeNet’s Sentinel RMS and SHK’s are the solutions we use and we absolutely can’t live without it. It provides all platforms, windows included, an huge number of licensing models, back-office integration libraries and API’s without having to pay HUGE $$$’s for consulting and integration (like others), and the hardware Keys are great for our High Piracy countries and high end products.

That is something that most of the competitors to the MS solution can not provide, a complete solution.

By: Social Media Marketing

Social Media Marketing — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 15:51:06 +0000

There is a mystery, They must be upto something else similar.

By: Mike Landis

Mike Landis — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 15:45:03 +0000

I looked around for a licensing solution and thought CryptKey and others were more trouble than they’re worth. Didn’t know MSFT was in that space, but if pricing was anything like the remaining players, the cash and engineering costs weren’t justifiable over home grown. Plus, home grown solutions have the benefit of being an unknown technology, so previous cracker community efforts against a vendor supplied solution don’t depreciate the protection scheme.

By: Fried rice

Fried rice — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 11:52:07 +0000

Could this by why: http://www.bloo...id=ajwsdZdSECBw

By: Fried rice

Fried rice — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 11:50:49 +0000

Could this by why…

By: Ross

Ross — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 09:37:58 +0000

Hmmmmm…. I had a look at the SLPS programme but the pricing structure made me run a mile. Not surprised it hasn’t survived as there are plenty of more reasonably priced alternatives and there is always the option of rolling your own.

By: Spitefulgod

Spitefulgod — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 07:54:29 +0000

I remember looking into this and seeing Licensing costs at around $25,000, not surprised it’s closed, probably will get eaten into codeplex

By: chris

chris — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 07:41:55 +0000

They just overpriced it. I like Microsoft for their ‘give anything a go’ approach which puts them in good stead with new technologies, but to fund this they have to hike their prices. When you consider economies of scale their OS, Office Suite or any software price it’s clearly sky high.

We looked at Microsoft’s DRM ages ago but chose http://www.fingoo.net as their service was simply way better value. A couple of years before we chose little know http://www.paypal.com for our merchant provider for the same reason… and where are the other merchant providers now?

I wish all companies would stop trying to rip us off, would save me a lot of time searching when I need a new service )

By: Grant Porteous

Grant Porteous — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 07:09:11 +0000

Serial Key Maker has long filled the gap for mISV’s looking for a cost effective and easy-to-implement .Net software licensing solution. With tons of example code, award winning service and a 30 day money-back guarantee, you’ll be up and running in no time!

Visit http://www.seri...r.com/index.htm for a free trial.

By: Adrian Bole

Adrian Bole — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 04:34:46 +0000

You guys might also want to check out Apptivation copy protection software if you’re developing for windows. http://www.apptivation.com

By: rei

rei — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 04:32:57 +0000

Take off your tinfoil hats, idiots.

It was a service that helped people put licensing on their software. You know, serial keys and online activation?

No one needed it because people like to brew their own. The end. Move on.

By: gowers

gowers — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 01:45:44 +0000

woo, not so good

By: PersonRatings

PersonRatings — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 21:17:35 +0000

If they’re going to get rid of something, why think small? Why not take Live search out behind the shed and shoot it?

By: AW

AW — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 19:53:30 +0000

Well, at least they didn’t screw their current users yet.

By: Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate Marketing — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 18:17:50 +0000

We cannot expect any thing what microsoft does. If it is closing this, I doubt it is upto something more bigger.