The Shift In Software Licensing

Via Information Week : According to a survey of both software vendors and major business customers by IDC, up front license purchasing will soon be replaced by subscription-licensing plans, in which vendors and customers adopt a pay-as-you-go arrangement that extends over several years. Amy Mizoras Konary, program manager for software pricing and licensing at IDC points out the problem in the current licensing method:

The problem with traditional licensing, she added, is that customers are often unable to track the amount of software they actually use, much less predict what they need. "Most customers are guessing on how much they're using, so they tend to overbuy," Konary said.