Software activation is a good idea?
Software activation (SA) is a process of product registration by connecting to an activation server. Everytime a software application is installed on a new computer, user should activate the copy of the application by obtaining an activation code from the SA server. Internet is the popular connection channel to SA server. Also phone or fax can be used to reach SA server. The activation code taken from the server is stored in the user’s computer and it is used to license verification. The activation code is composed from hardware component information ,and it is almost unique to each computer.
Software vendors widely use SA to protect their digital rights with the goal of reducing piracy and increasing revenue. Users are understandably wary of software activation process, since early instances of SA were poorly implemented.
Expectation or Reason to use SA
- increase revenue by reducing piracy.
Requirements:
- more development
- more execution in application
- requires a connection the SA server internet/phone/fax
If you believe the advantage like me, focus on the requirement and work on each item. However some people think total sale will not increase with SA and they try to increase the total sale with the increase the popularity by unlicensed copy. This marketing strategy was successfully applied in a few popular products. There are a few samples in the thousands of products and even Microsoft spent millions of dollars to protect Vista with SA. In my opinion each case, each product should be analyzed carefully with expected sales, expected unlicensed usage, and cost of SA integration. If you do not plan to make a big expansion all over the world by propagating product and encourage people to use it freely, and make money after that , then i suggest you save all pennies.
Require more development may be outsourced. Nice solutions are now in the market with the reasonable price. So my advice is left the development to the SA professionals, and focus on your core business. In most case developing your own solution is time and money waste , even Adobe does not do itself.
Require more execution in application: Registration is one-time process and it takes a few seconds during the installation. Validation of license on each run should be carefully implemented. This process consist of a couple of encryption/decryption algorithm and collection hardware component information. With today computers it takes less than a second at the start of application. So with the right solution it is not a problem.
Requires a connection the server internet/phone/fax : Yes, it is the bottleneck of SA. If the computer in which installation is made, connected to the internet everything goes automatically and user do not do anything, however informing user about activation is a necessary to being open. In offline case user may have chance to activate by fax/phone. However this means you will pay extra for new activation servers ,software and service. If your application will not get revenue enough , there is simple and cheap solution, manual activation. It means that make activation by another computer which is connected to the internet from the a web site. In all offline solution user interaction is needed.
User interaction necessity in offline case may be seen as a punishment of honest people. Good news is, nowadays internet is very popular and widely used. If increasing revenue is guaranteed , a couple of unhappy offline customers are acceptable?. The big problem in SA is because of insufficient implementation , bugs that honest people encounters. You carefully develop your solution or choose the SA solution before you buy.
Software Industry will continue to use SA or similar approaches to protect their digital right because it is the best known way stopping privacy, at least today world.