SIIA today announced the new members of its Software Division Board of Directors. These executives from SIIA member companies will help provide the software industry with leadership, advocacy and critical market information in the crucial months and years ahead.

In addition, these individuals will come together to represent SIIA Software Division member firms that develop business and infrastructure applications that drive growth in the digital economy. As members of the Software Division Board of Directors, all of the newly elected and appointed executives will develop and prioritize the Division’s initiatives and determine the projects, activities and events to be undertaken by SIIA.

Newly elected and appointed board members are:

• Brian Bell, Zuora
• Mike Binko, Kloudtrack
• Mary Brandon, SoftServe
• Richard Dym, BondiGroup
• Kristina Lengyel, Kronos Incorporated
• Gunnar Hellekson, Red Hat
• Michelle Nerlinger, SafeNet
• Bob Rizika, ProfitBricks
• Joe Talley, Deloitte
• Frits Veltnik, SaaS Energy

Continuing to serve on the board to complete their terms are:

• Ron Antevy,e-Builder
• Eileen Boerger,Corsource
• Feyzi Fatehi, Corent
• Lou Guercia, Scribe Software
• Allen Hoke, Oracle
• Edy Liongosari, Accenture
• Morris Panner,DiCOM Grid
• Mike RiegeI, IBM
• David Roth, AppFirst
• Jim Szafranski, Fiberlink

These experienced executives bring industry perspective and help SIIA advance business priorities for our member companies. Together we can ensure that SIIA continues to provide valued services to our member organizations and remains a strong voice for the software industry.

Rhianna Collier is VP for the Software Division at SIIA. Follow the Software team on Twitter at @SIIASoftware.

Software monetization leader, SafeNet, joined SIIA today in releasing the results of a joint survey of more than 620 software developers and 194 enterprise software end users, revealing that developers continue to struggle with how to secure their critical intellectual property (IP) without disrupting their business. As a result of not implementing the right licensing models and security as a foundational pillar of their business, software developers are finding that they are losing revenue, seeing diminishing profitability and increasing the risk to their brand and overall reputation.

Participants cited inflexible licensing models, insufficient software protection, and inadequate operational procedures as the main impediments toward fully monetizing their software, protecting their company’s most critical intellectual property and fully integrating software monetization into their business model.

Some of the highlights of the survey include:

• One out of two (53 percent) software publishers surveyed said they would have driven higher revenues for their software if they had more licensing flexibility.
• Nearly one out of two (48 percent) software publisher respondents admitted that competitive IP theft had a significant impact on their business.
• In addition to licensing and piracy issues, nearly one out of two (46 percent) software publishers now report that dysfunction in their back offices has had a significant impact on their business, with nearly two out of three (60 percent) admitting that they struggle with back-office licensing processes.

Tipping Point for Licensing Models

More than half (53 percent) of software publishers surveyed said they lost revenue opportunities due to the limited flexibility of licensing models, which negatively impacted their business. In addition, 61 percent of publishers admit that they struggle with the ability to price and package their applications at the feature level. Almost half (49 percent) of respondents admit that re-packaging offerings without engineering involvement is a challenge, and that they struggle to support the license models their customers are demanding. Given the issues faced by software providers, it is not surprising that inflexible licenses were cited as the biggest software licensing headache by more than a third (35 percent) of end-user respondents.

Revenue and Brand Reputation Increasingly at Risk

Beyond licensing flexibility problems, nearly half of all respondents also reported that lack of control over their software was a major contributor to revenue loss—48 percent of software publisher respondents thought that competitive IP theft had a significant impact on their business, and 42 percent thought that lost revenue due to software piracy had a significant impact. This result is not unexpected, considering that 70 percent of respondents reported challenges with piracy prevention, 63 percent reported challenges with reverse-engineering protection, and 51 percent reported challenges with code-tampering prevention.

The responses from software end users justify concerns about the business impact of software misuse—more than 60 percent report having some unlicensed software in use within their organization last year. This behavior seems to be reinforced by software publishers; while 74 percent worry that their software may become compromised, only 58 percent employ license compliance enforcement mechanisms and only 46 percent employ IP protection tools.

Back-Office Dysfunction Leading to Operational Inefficiencies and Revenue Loss

In the past, when the software industry discussed revenue leakage, the focus was on piracy. As the industry has progressed, software publishers increasingly recognize other revenue barriers. Forty-six percent of software publishers now report that dysfunction in their back offices has had a significant impact on their business. This is consistent with the finding that nearly 60 percent also admitted they struggle with back-office licensing processes, and only 31 percent of respondents said they have integrated entitlement management processes. More than half of publishers said they face the following operational challenges—entitlement management generation, delivery, and/or activation (55 percent); end-user support and/or self-service (54 percent), and end-user provisioning (50 percent). End users are also feeling the back-office pain; nearly one-third (32 percent) say that the process associated with lost license keys is their biggest licensing headache, and only 28 percent of the vendors offer customer self-service tools.

Lack of Usage Visibility Restricting Business Intelligence

Business intelligence is critical for decisions related to new markets, product packaging, and efficient internal resource management. Therefore, software publishers’ ability to track who is using their software—as well as when, how, and to what extent—is critically important. However, there is a struggle for most publishers (68 percent) with usage visibility. More specifically, more than half of all respondents reported challenges with tracking feature usage (60 percent), information about end users (52 percent), and entitlement status (51 percent). Without this information, executive management lacks the insight they need to effectively drive product investment plans, packaging strategies, and other critical business decisions.

An Effective Software Monetization Strategy is Needed for Maximizing Value

Despite the challenges software publishers face, they recognize that an effective software monetization strategy can help them maximize the value of their IP. In fact, more than 84 percent of respondents say that an effective software monetization strategy could boost their revenue by up to 50 percent.

Software developers are experiencing the evolution of software monetization. While strong security still tops the list of important software monetization solution features (63 percent of respondents), it is followed closely by other key features, including flexible packaging/bundling functionality (52 percent), automated provisioning and enforcement (51 percent), and minimizing the burden on engineering (49 percent).

Supporting Resources:

• To learn more about the survey, download a copy of the SafeNet and SIAA State of Software Monetization Executive Summary at www.safenet-inc.com/softwaremonetizationmatters.
• Blog Post:  Software Producers: Piracy isn’t your problem; it’s Flexibility; Prakash Panjwani, SVP and GM, Software Monetization Solutions;  http://licensinglive.com/blog/2013/03/software-producers-piracy-isnt-your-problem-its-flexibility
• Learn more about the four aspects of a comprehensive software monetization strategy.
• Join the LicensingLive! Software Monetization Community.
• Follow SafeNet on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and LinkedIn.

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Rhianna Collier is VP for the Software Division at SIIA. Follow the Software team on Twitter at @SIIASoftware.

SIIA released its second annual survey of leading marketing executives today.  For its “Marketing Industry Report,” we asked executives a series of questions about their company’s use of social media and mobile marketing.  The results provide an interesting and useful snapshot of how today’s businesses are incorporating leading tech platforms, specifically social media and mobile, into their marketing programs.

The results show that technology is playing a significant – and in many cases, growing – role in corporate marketing.  And while nearly all companies have embraced social media marketing, other platforms, especially mobile, have only limited appeal for digital marketers.  The results also show that most executives have yet to invest significant resources in their digital marketing efforts – though many appear ready to increase their commitment of both time and money.

Below are key findings from the survey, which will be explored in-depth during an SIIA webinar on February 27.

Social Marketing Now Universal

This year’s survey finds a significant jump in the number of executives who say their company is using social media as a marketing platform.  Only 2 percent of respondents now say they are not using social media for marketing – a figure that stood at 11 percent a year ago.  This year’s survey also shows that 69 percent of executives say that social media is having a positive impact on their business – a slight decline from last year, in which just over 74 percent felt a positive impact.

And while the results show that nearly all businesses are now using social media marketing, they also indicate that the amount of time companies are dedicating to social media marketing has remained about the same.  This year’s results track closely with the previous year, with the exception that slightly more executives say their teams spend one to 10 hours per week on social media marketing (66 percent in 2013 survey versus 54.5 percent in the 2012 report).  The increase at the lower end of the time range is likely because more companies are using social media marketing, and new entrants tend to begin with a more limited engagement.

Executives clearly expect a greater commitment to social media in the future – 58 percent say they plan to spend more on social media marketing in the year ahead.  And while 30 percent of executives think that social media is adding to their marketing costs, an increasing number say it is reducing marketing costs (7 percent in 2013 survey, versus 4.7 percent in 2012).

With nearly all companies now using social media, it’s clear that the business community sees conclusive marketing value in these channels. The fairly stagnant time of use data suggests that companies are treadling lightly when it comes to their current social marketing commitment. But even with that, all signs point to more time and money being invested in social marketing in the years to come.

Mobile Marketing Impactful, But Usage Lags

At the same time that social media marketing is advancing, business use of mobile marketing continues to lag.  Only 25 percent of the companies surveyed are using mobile marketing – a slight drop from the 2012 survey, in which 29 percent said they are using mobile marketing.  Of the companies using mobile marketing, nearly half say that the mobile solution they offer is being used by 5 percent or less of their customers.  Given the low usage rates, it makes sense that more companies are not jumping into mobile marketing.

Still, even with low usage, executives believe that mobile marketing is having an impact.  One-third of executives in this year’s survey say that mobile marketing has changed the relationship with their customers, with 16 percent saying that product usage has increased.

This year’s survey also shows a significant drop in the number of companies targeting the Blackberry platform in their mobile marketing efforts.  Those targeting iOS, Windows and Android platforms remained largely the same between 2012 and 2013, however those targeting Blackberry dropped from 22 percent in the 2012 survey, to just 12 percent this year.

Mobile is unquestionably changing the way people live and work, but has yet to significantly change the way companies market. For the second year in a row we find limited use of mobile marketing and little indication that will change in the immediate future.  That said, there is a strong positive sign in the fact that a large percent of those using mobile are getting results.  More evidence of positive results, combined with expanding smartphone penetration and technological developments, should fuel mobile marketing growth in the years ahead.

The 2013 survey, which was conducted between October and December 2012, mirrors a survey SIIA conducted during a similar time period in 2011.  It asked questions of over 100 marketing executives who work for companies ranging in size, including those employing 1 to 99 people (65 percent), those employing between 100 and 999 (25 percent) and those employing over 1000 people (10 percent).

Rhianna Collier is VP for the Software Division at SIIA. Follow the Software team on Twitter at @SIIASoftware.