TinyTERM Licensing Options
Century Software has two forms of licensing for product use:
Permanent
- Pay once for the life of the product.
- If a new version is released within 45 days of purchase, upgrade for free.
- Annual maintenance contract available for 25% of initial license cost.
Subscription
- Lower initial cost.
- Annual subscription covers all new releases, enhancements and patches.
License Types
Century offers a number of means of software product licensing, some which may better
fit the deployment requirements than others. The following is a clarification of
available license types.
Single-User Licensing
A single-user license allows the software to be installed and operated from only one
desktop PC.
Per-User Licensing
Per-User software licensing requires a license per user using or accessing that software.
Per-Server Licensing
The Per-Server software license requires a license for each server running the software.
Multi-User Licensing
The Multi-User License allows the use of the software product on a given number of
separate workstations or desktop PCs. A single license key is supplied which allows
operation on the given total number of separate users. This same key is used for
installation on each of the PCs, regardless of whether it is pushed from an installation
server, installed manually on each PC, or installed through some other method. A
Multi-User license does not allow the software to be installed on or run from a server.
A concurrent license is required for that case.
Concurrent Licensing
Concurrent licensing is designed for Citrix or Microsoft Terminal Server environments,
also known as thin client environments. In these environments, applications are centrally
installed and managed on the server(s). Users access a server through a fat or thin
client, and the application is displayed on the client, while running on the server.
A concurrent license key is required for each server, each specifying a maximum
concurrent user count, which allows that many simultaneous users to run the software. In
an environment with multiple servers, a license would be required for each server, keyed to
the number of simultaneous users accessing each specified server.
Starting with version 4.64, a Server license key is required in order for TinyTERM to
run on a Windows server, including Citrix and Microsoft Terminal Server. The key includes
a user count, and automatically audits concurrent terminal emulator access running on
that server.
Upgrade Licensing
Upgrade Licensing allows a one-time permanent replacement of the in-use version of a
product to Century’s current version, for products not covered under an ongoing
maintenance agreement.
Maintenance Licensing Agreement
Century’s yearly maintenance plan agreement allows technical support, access to
upgrades, new version releases, prioritized bug fixes, and requested feature
enhancements free of charge during the plan term.
To protect an organization from the future higher costs of upgrading, maintenance
coverage is priced at a significantly lower price than upgrade pricing. Century’s
maintenance program offers any and all releases, updates, patches and fixes that are
released within the period of maintenance coverage free of charge, providing a
significant savings compared to upgrade costs when Windows OS or security requirements
change.
Currently, there are many security enhancements and updates that Microsoft and other
operating system vendors make regularly to improve their products. This requires Century
to update products on a regular basis for compatibility. These updates traditionally occur
about every six months.
Subscription Licensing
Subscription licensing allows a company to obtain a product use license and maintenance
coverage at a much lower initial cost, with a subscription license fee paid annually.
Subscription licensing is renewed yearly at the same cost, and also allows adding or
subtracting users, as well as receiving new versions and upgrades without incurring
capital expense or negotiating any contract. It offers the flexibility to meet
organizations needs for ever-changing environments easily. Century’s discounted subscription license pricing meets ongoing
terminal emulation needs with the lowest overall cost.
Subscription license benefits
- One low annual cost covers product use licensing, support and version upgrades
- Quantities can be increased or decreased to match changing requirements
- Eliminates large capital expenditures, replaced with a lower-cost subscription expense
- Ideal for organizations requiring a fully supported terminal emulation solution,
future-proofed against Windows updates, security fixes or changing government-mandated
access requirements
The subscription cost includes:
- Concurrent or multi-user product use license
- Consolidation and replacement of other vendor’s licenses
- Ongoing security updates
- Compatibility with all future Microsoft Windows OS upgrades (Windows 7, 64-bit)
- Special enhancement requests
- Regular version upgrades, new releases, fixes and patches
- Full technical support
There are significant differences between maintenance licensing and subscription
licensing, although they seem similar. With subscription licensing, organizations get
the benefits of maintenance plus a product use license. If not renewed, the licenses will
expire, and the product will stop working on the expiration date.
Although maintenance
coverage also expires, organizations with multi-user or concurrent licenses will experience
continued operation of the product after the maintenance coverage has expired.