What do Virtualization and Cloud executives think about 2011?  Find out in this VMblog.com series exclusive.

1.      High-tech device manufacturers will start to look and act more like software vendors, creating similar requirements around license and entitlement management

2.      Virtual appliances will continue to grow in popularity as a delivery model

3.      Continued adoption of server virtualization will drive vendors to adapt licensing policies to better support these dynamic environments

4.      Enterprises will begin to better leverage their license entitlements to reduce ongoing licensing costs for key vendors

5.      Traffic is moving to the sky (According to the 6^th annual Flexera Software Software Pricing and Licensing Survey *, 60% of ISVs believe licensing will change in the next 2 years to adapt to cloud computing)

6.      Usage-based pricing will increase significantly (70% of enterprises indicated tracking usage is either important or very important; 40% Publishers expect to offer usage-based pricing within 2 years)*

7.      Software audits will continue to increase as producers need to tap all sources to maintain revenues (13% of publishers expect to conduct physical license audits vs. 3 % previous year)*

8.      Demand will grow for more flexible licensing models, such as usage-based pricing, which in turn will fuel the demand for more sophisticated application usage tracking tools. As a result, vendors will come  up with innovative ways to change their pricing models in order to provide more flexible licensing options to enterprises to accommodate areas such as cloud-based computing (72% of publishers are adding flexibility (complexity) to their pricing models)*

9.      Producers and enterprises will both need to acquire more sophisticated tools to track usage in order to accommodate these licensing models, enforce/maintain compliance and optimize usage

About the Author

Steve Schmidt is the Vice President of Product Management at Flexera Software, responsible for product planning, positioning and market delivery of Flexera Software's industry-leading licensing and installation solutions, including the FlexNet, InstallShield and AdminStudio product lines.

Prior to Flexera Software, Steve held VP of Product Management positions at Macrovision, in both the Software Business Unit as well as the Distribution and Commerce Business Unit. Before Macrovision, Steve was the Director of Product Management at InstallShield Software Corporation, which he joined in 1998. Steve began his 20 year technology management career running global IT projects for Procter & Gamble's Advanced Technology Group. Steve received a Bachelor of Science in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Notre Dame and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.