MBA Mondays: Revenue Models - Licensing Licensing, according to
wikipedia, is an authorization (by the licensor) to use the
licensed material (by the licensee). Of all the business models
listed on the revenue model hackpad, licensing is the least net
native business model. There is very little about the internet
that makes licensing work better and there is a lot that makes
it work worse. Here are some of the ways licensing can be used
to build a business: The first five items in that list are
related to the software business and reflect the dominant
business model for software before the internet came along.
Software used to be sold (licensed) with maintenance as the
recurring revenue item. The internet has largely changed that
with software moving to a subscription model (SAAS) as we
discussed in the subscription post. Software is still sold with
a license, in fact the SAAS model doesn't change the provision
of a license, but the idea that you will pay up front for a
license has largely gone away in favor