Avid, a provider of audio and video technology, needed a common licensing platform to manage licenses across its multiple products obtained through mergers and acquisitions. It implemented FlexNet Licensing and FlexNet Operations which provided a flexible licensing framework to support different license types and metrics. This improved the customer experience and allowed Avid to launch new subscription offerings while maintaining support for perpetual licenses. FlexNet Connect also enabled automated product updates and analytics to help Avid evaluate business needs.

1. Customer Experience Drives Licensing
Transformation
If you’ve seen the movies Hunger Games
or Gravity, you’ve seen Avid technology in
action. The company provides technology for
the entire media value chain—from media
creation to monetization, distribution, and
tracking. The company serves enterprises,
aspiring creative professionals, media
enterprises (broadcast, government) and
professional firms.
To meet their diverse audience needs,
Avid provides a highly flexible and robust
toolset. As that toolset continued to expand
and transform, managing their licensing
processes and providing an easy-to-use
customer experience became more complex.
Mergers/Acquisitions Create Need for
Common Licensing Approach
Much of Avid’s product line growth occurred
through multiple mergers and acquisitions,
resulting in more than 18 homegrown and
commercial licensing technologies.
“Someone in the audio market, for example,
might have 2-3 different Avid tools,” explains
Rob Gonsalves, Director of Architecture,
Avid. “Each product would have its own
licensing system, which meant activations
and entitlement management
worked differently.”
This meant Avid had multiple licensing
systems as well as multiple reporting systems
and databases that had to be maintained.
“We needed a common user experience
across every Avid application and a single
licensing backend system that could be easily
maintained and run as an enterprise system,
like we run SAP,” continued Gonsalves.
The company set clear objectives for
improving the customer experience:
• A single way for customers to interact
with Avid for license activities
• Providing license choices for customers
(when business appropriate)
• Creating a foundation for enhanced
service and interaction capabilities
To meet these objectives, Avid realized they
needed to find a technology that would
support a common licensing platform vs. a
single licensing approach. Because of its
highly flexible solutions, Avid decided to
partner with Flexera Software.
Customer Profile: Avid is the world’s leading provider of audio and video
technology for media organizations and independent professionals. Their customers
use Avid solutions to create, distribute, and monetize the most prestigious and award-
winning films, videos, music recordings, TV shows, live concerts, and news broadcasts.
Challenges and Needs:
• No common customer experience for activation and licensing
• Over 18 licensing technologies through multiple mergers and acquisitions
• Back-end system required extensive maintenance
• Multiple reporting systems and databases needing support
• Lack of automated update support for subscription product strategy
Solution:Avid implemented FlexNet Licensing and FlexNet Operations to create a
flexible licensing platform and simplify the customer experience. Avid also automated
product updates through FlexNet Connect and gained deeper analytics into product use
and needs.
Benefits:
• Improved, consistent customer experience for activation and licensing
• Single licensing back-end that could be managed like an ERP
• Flexible framework to support different requirements, including traditional,
subscription, hosted, embedded and more
Success Story:
Avid Technology
Continue
“The idea of a flexible platform was really important
for us. We had varied requirements from all of the
product owners and we needed to find a system
that could meet all of them. One licensing approach
was not going to work for us, but a unified licensing
framework would and that’s what Flexera offered.”
– Rob Gonsalves
Director of Architecture
Avid
“The flexibility of the licensing scheme enabled
us to maintain different license types. We were
able to manage perpetual license types as well as
subscription licenses and balance the development
for both more easily. It also simplified external pain
because it looks the same for the user.”
– Kate Ketcham
Media Composer Product Manager
Avid
Increases Customer Satisfaction by Simplifying the Licensing and
Product Update Experience

2. Flexera Software LLC
(Global Headquarters):
+1 800-809-5659
United Kingdom (Europe,
Middle East Headquarters):
+44 870-871-1111
+44 870-873-6300
Australia (Asia,
Pacific Headquarters):
+61 3-9895-2000
Beijing, China:
+86 10-6510-1566
For more office locations visit:
www.flexerasoftware.com
Copyright © 2015 Flexera Software LLC. All other brand and product names mentioned herein may be the trademarks and registered trademarks of their respective owners.
FPS_SS_Avid_Jan15
FlexNet Licensing and FlexNet
Operations Create Flexible
Licensing Platform
Flexera’s solutions offered Avid the flexibility
needed for multiple licensing methodologies
and metrics, whether software or embedded,
on-premise or hosted, and more.
“The idea of a flexible platform was really
important for us. We had varied requirements
from all of the product owners and we
needed to find a system that could meet all
of them,” said Gonsalves. “One licensing
approach was not going to work for us, but a
unified licensing framework would and that’s
what Flexera offered.”
This flexibility played a big role as Avid
launched its first subscription product for
the Media Composer product line. “The
flexibility of the licensing scheme enabled
us to maintain different license types,”
said Kate Ketcham, Media Composer line
manager, Avid. “Using our current licensing
scheme, we were able to manage perpetual
license types as well as subscription licenses
and balance the development for both
more easily. It also simplified external pain
because it looks the same for the user.”
Avid also experienced another big benefit:
automated updates through FlexNet Connect.
FlexNet Connect Automated Updates
Support Successful Subscription Launch
By using FlexNet Connect, Avid was able
to send out updates and messages for
its subscription product. “This automated
communication was our way of showing the
value of a subscription offering and turn it
into a solution that the customer would use,”
said Ketcham. “We’re looking at more cloud-
based and subscriptions offerings and will
use Flexera solutions as we roll these out.”
FlexNet Connect Strengthens Business
Analytics and Partner Evaluation
In addition to licensing and automated
communications, Avid also built a whole
FlexNet Connect data collection system to
get a better understanding of key product
needs and issues. “The first product line
that this will really impact is Pro Tools,”
explains Gonsalves. “This product line
has lots of options to use third party tools
that Avid does not sell directly. By using
FlexNet Connect we can see which are
actually getting used and at what scale. It
helps us evaluate our partner relationships.”
Gonsalves also added that the infrastructure
is set up so Avid will be able to track key
analytics for any product attached to
FlexNet Licensing.
What’s Next for Avid
For Avid, the primary objective was about
the customer, but the foundation built offers
more potential. “Our licensing platform
accomplished a single way to interact for
license activations and enables license
choice,” said Gonsalves. “It also serves as a
foundation for future expansion of service to
the client.”
Avid also gained other advantages,
including: cost reduction, better
understanding of installed base, supporting
a move to a sell-thru business model for
retail, and ability to react quickly to changing
business and customer needs.
“FlexNet Connect in particular has given
us a chance to easily communicate with
and understand our customers, which we
never could do to before and it supports our
subscription strategy,” said Gonsalves. “As
we continue to expand our product plans
and business models, Flexera solutions are a
really strong fit and offer us great flexibility.”
About Flexera Software
Flexera Software helps application producers
and enterprises increase application
usage and the value they derive from their
software. Our next-generation software
licensing, compliance and installation
solutions are essential to ensure continuous
licensing compliance, optimized software
investments and to future-proof businesses
against the risks and costs of constantly
changing technology. Over 80,000
customers turn to Flexera Software as a
trusted and neutral source for the knowledge
and expertise we have gained as the
marketplace leader for over 25 years and
for the automation and intelligence designed
into our products. For more information,
please go to: www.flexerasoftware.com