Gemalto has recently announced that it will provide a range of secure licensing solution to Snell Advanced Media (SAM), a provider of live production, editing, playout, infrastructure and image processing technology for the broadcast, post production and media industries.
Sentinel Entitlement Management System (EMS) and Sentinel Rights Management System (RMS) enable SAM to streamline licensing operations and protect the valuable Intellectual Property (IP) around its new product suite of software tools, xFile.
The development of the xFile framework was a move that transformed their postproduction solutions from purely hardware-based to software-based. SAM looked to Gemalto to provide a means to apply licensing to improve operational efficiencies including audit reporting, renewal reporting and product activation, and prevent IP theft.
“Before we could offer our software commercially, we knew we had to protect our applications from reverse engineering and tampering,” said Jeremy Courtney, Head of Media Processing Software, SAM. “Operating in the dynamic media and broadcasting space means we are dealing with an increasingly digital-savvy client base, and offering that extra security and ease-of-deployment for our software packages is what makes all the difference. One of the advantages of our On Demand framework is its flexibility and scalability and we wanted the same in the protection and licensing solution that we chose. The addition of Sentinel RMS and EMS has further enhanced that.”
Sentinel RMS enables SAM to easily offer and enforce a variety of licensing models and packaging options for its xFile products. In addition to offering new ways to package and sell our products, Sentinel RMS protects the intellectual property in the applications, reducing the risk of IP compromise,
Sentinel EMS manages software entitlements for its individual products in the suite and back office licensing operations, including the software fulfillment and activation for which each customer is entitled. SAM integrated the Sentinel EMS license server with its SAM store to enable online customer self-service – including payment, automated order fulfillment, activation, maintenance releases, and upgrades. Once payment clears, Sentinel EMS creates the entitlement and returns an activation code to the customer. Gemalto also supplied a Salesforce.com Connector to enable future integration of Sentinel EMS with SAM’s CRM system.
“SAM’s transformation is indicative of what we are seeing in the device vendors market. To stay ahead of the curve in the relevant industry, vendors need to be forward-thinking to realise the value of a software-driven business model and the potential such a transformation could have on pricing and packaging models,” said Jamie Longmuir, regional director, Gemalto. “The collaboration between Gemalto and SAM reflects the importance that software licensing and entitlement is having on a business that is looking to grow and secure its competitive advantage.”
