2024 was a landmark year for Wibu-Systems as we celebrated 35 years of unwavering commitment to business continuity, technological advancement, and team cohesion. For over three decades, Wibu-Systems has been at the forefront of cybersecurity and software license lifecycle management, safeguarding the digital assets and intellectual property of organizations worldwide. The coming year is sure to bring new challenges as IP theft, critical data breaches, cybercrimes, and threats to human safety will continue to drive our commitment to making the digital world safe.
Here are some of the licensing and protection trends we expect to see in 2025:
License Server in the Cloud
The software licensing market continues to advance and offer many options for ISVs to satisfy their customers’ unique application needs. Most common are licenses made available on local devices or on local network servers where the software is still available on the local device, but can be shared by a pre-set number of users, as applied with floating network licenses. More recently the cloud has come into play, with cloud-based user-bound licenses, where one user can use the license on multiple machines, but usually not at the same time. Coming next is the implementation of a combination of cloud and a local server, enabling concurrent licenses at a server in the cloud. This provides advantages for both the user and the ISV. Users can access their license from anywhere at anytime without a connection to a network server or local VPN. This setup is perfect for mobile users. For the ISV, it enables usage reporting in real time, providing valuable insights into application usage. The hybrid server model is sure to evolve further in 2025.
Licensing Solutions for Small Devices
At the core of the Industrial IoT (IIoT), you will find a number of diverse types of sensors, drivers, and other small devices that are responsible for collecting and distributing data to enable smart machines to make the critical manufacturing decisions to improve efficiency, productivity, and economy. It is also well documented that these critical devices are also easy targets for cyber attacks because they have limited computing power or memory, making it difficult to integrate robust protection and licensing measures that typically require additional resources on the target device. Gartner predicts that these devices will continue to proliferate in the IIoT in the coming years. To ensure robust protection and seamless licensing for these devices, Wibu-Systems is gearing up to deliver innovative out-of-the-box solutions in 2025. These cutting-edge offerings will provide comprehensive security for the critical components powering the smart factories of the future, ensuring resilience against cyber threats while supporting the efficiency and reliability of industrial IoT ecosystems.
License Reporting
In a rapidly changing digital economy, it is essential for suppliers to understand the evolving buying and usage behavior of their end customers. Particularly for ISVs, software usage insights are key to optimizing products, business processes, and even overall business models. With usage reporting, ISVs gain a powerful tool to better understand customer behavior, refine products, and implement completely new business opportunities, such as pay-per-use licensing. Wibu-Systems is preparing a comprehensive software usage reporting solution, available in early 2025, that will provide a solid foundation for analyzing license usage and allow ISVs to gain valuable insights to improve their profitability.
Self-Service for Enterprise Customers
Enterprise customers typically purchase a large quantity of licenses from one vendor. With the batch of licenses on hand, they need to assign licenses to users or groups of users easily, and they want to know which licenses are assigned to which users or groups. They also expect that a license will be automatically removed at the users’ computer when they revoke the assignment of a license. Given the potential complexities of managing such a large number of licenses, enterprise users are looking for a solution to ease the complexity of provisioning, monitoring, and maintaining license compliance for these licenses. For this purpose, Wibu-Systems has designed a License Portal in conjunction with CodeMeter License Central to provide a convenient self-service solution that satisfies both the enterprise license manager and end users.
Licensing in Virtual Environments
Last year, we noted the growing popularity of virtualization, making it easier for IT managers to handle different platforms in a unique way outside a connected network. We see the trend continuing in 2025. Standard software will be used increasingly in virtual environments. This creates additional challenges for licensing. Vendors do not want licenses to be duplicated while users expect that all licenses are inside the virtual machine and can be used anywhere. Vendors will continue to look for optional solutions and best practices for implementing License Servers both locally and in the cloud.
Licensing in Containerized Environments: The Rise of the Industrial App Marketplace
Containerization is becoming a popular tool for running multiple applications in virtual environments, offering interoperability between devices of different hardware vendors. Docker is one of the most widely used platforms for creating, deploying, and managing applications via containers. This technology has also created opportunities for open and dynamic marketplaces for industrial applications, where hardware and software vendors can buy and sell applications easily via ecommerce solutions. FLECS technologies and the OI4 Community App Store are good examples of successful commercial implementations of these marketplaces. However, like virtual environments, they are not without licensing and security challenges. In both cases, Wibu-Systems licensing and protection technologies were integrated into the marketplace to ensure a secure ecommerce environment. We see growing opportunities for industrial marketplaces in the near future based on these early successes and we are ready to fulfill the need for securing the environment.
Strengthening Cybersecurity Standards in the EU
The European Union has introduced the Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) – a regulation that fundamentally redefines cybersecurity for products with digital elements (PDEs). The CRA aims to strengthen cybersecurity standards in the EU and will require companies to take robust measures to ensure the safety of digital products sold in Europe. Whether it is software, hardware, or cloud-based services – all companies that bring digital products to the European market or use them must prepare for extensive regulations. The Cyber Resilience Act is planned for adoption and enforcement between 2025 and 2027. The CRA is a turning point – it demands a shift in mindset and proactive action from all involved. ISVs and embedded system manufacturers should begin to prepare for these upcoming regulations now. Wibu-Systems is well positioned to help developers plan and meet the new cyber security requirements as our CodeMeter technology already offers many functions to help meet these requirements.