John Gibs, Product Manager
Agfa Licensing Software,
Agfa, Belgium
Congratulations to the whole team at
Wibu-Systems! Working with you for the
past eight years has been a pleasure. We
are looking forward to securely growing
our business together.
Where did the idea of CodeMeter
originate?
[Marcellus] Before the Internet, software was
burned on a CD and shipped in a box; adding
a dongle was a no-brainer. In the Internet age,
CDs became obsolete and software was all
downloaded, which completely changed the
rules of the game. Threats multiplied, allowing
us in turn to grow our market share, but at
the same time we had to rethink the concept
of the product itself. We ended up envisioning
a dongle which could be shared by many
software publishers, but strictly programmable
and upgradable at the end user’s computer.
After lot of brainstorming we came up with the
idea that the name for this new product would
be “CodeMeter” to express the purpose of the
technology, namely that the “metering” aspect
related to the use of software, so that the act
of measuring could be used as an attribute of
the source code.
Even the busiest people need to take a break sometimes
level. Last but not least, competition and new
security threats challenge our brain and ensure
we continuously evolve our products.
CodeMeter seems to be a
complex product. How can it be
described simply?
Being the CEO of a company for
25 years is not an easy business;
what is your way to keep a clear
vision of the future strategies
you want to pursue?
[Oliver] WIBU-SYSTEMS’ first core value
is to be of service to our customers so that
their business can expand, once their assets
are protected. And for that we listen closely
to customers’ wishes; they are an incredible
source of ideas due to their diversity in their
markets, cultures, and perspectives. Further, we
try to anticipate the market trends, and that’s
where our active role in several international
business organizations and standardization
bodies lets our imagination flies to a different
[Marcellus] In our early years our attention
was fully taken by dongles as they represent
the utmost security level when it comes to
software protection. But we also knew that
the criteria for adopting such a technology
would sometimes include other circumstances,
like at times the impossibility to connect to
hardware at the end user’s site, or a peculiar
license distribution model, or a security solution
so advanced that it was the most expensive
part of the application. This is why we added
CmActLicense to our portfolio. It still resides
under the same CodeMeter umbrella, because
licenses can actually be stored in a mix of
containers, all handled by the same core
technology. CodeMeter is still involved when
it comes to the creation, management, and
distribution of licenses, but now it’s a different
layer of the CodeMeter technology – License
Central. License Central interfaces with hardand soft-license holders and streamlines the
whole process in conjunction with the existing
business ERP, CRM, and e-commerce systems
in place.
Who are WIBU-SYSTEMS’ ideal
customers?
[Oliver] Essentially we are coming across two
main user groups. One uses PC software in
office environments, while the other consists
of manufacturers that deal with industrial
applications and embedded devices. The former
is gradually implementing a centralized license
Christian Vardin, President, ControlEng, Canada
Happy 25th Birthday. We first started using WibuKey back in 2004 to protect our flagship
product “SERVOsoft”. We now use CodeMeter for both protection and license management.
Thanks for responding so quickly over the years to our requests and the requests of our
customers and distributors.
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