Flexera Expands Software Monetization Portfolio With Revulytics: Q&A; With Nicole Segerer & Vic DeMarines

On Feb. 5, 2020, Flexera announced its acquisition of Revulytics, an open-source software scanning, and monetization leader. With this acquisition, Flexera plans to help software suppliers who are looking to derive value. Additionally, Revulytics' product teams enable users to make better, data-driven decisions and provides compliance teams with the actionable data they need to generate revenue from unlicensed use.

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In this exclusive Martech Buzz conversation, Nicole Segerer, vice president of global marketing and enablement and Vic DeMarines, vice president of usage analytics products at Flexera, discuss the details of this acquisition, their plan to leverage the software usage analytics space in the U.S., and more.

Segerer is responsible for Flexera's go-to-market strategy, positioning, and messaging. She leads software monetization for software, SaaS, and IoT businesses.

DeMarines joined Flexera in February 2020 at the time of its acquisition of Revulytics, where he was responsible for product management and strategy, as well as the data success teams.

Here are some excerpts from the insightful conversation with MarTech Advisor:

MarTech Advisor: Flexera has said that "Software monetization is more than licensing and enforcement; it's also about understanding actual product usage." What were your top 3 reasons to expand your software monetization portfolio?

Segerer: Software suppliers that don't understand in detail how their products are used put their business at risk; their business models and their products might not deliver on their customer needs. As a leader for software monetization, it is Flexera's goal to provide technology companies with everything they need to run a successful software business model. Hence, it was the next logical step for us to deepen and broaden our usage analytics capabilities. The three main reasons are:

1. Give product management and product marketing teams more insights that they can use for pricing, packaging, and roadmap decisions
2. Provide compliance teams with actionable data to better understand the overuse of their products, as well as unlicensed use
3. Most importantly, provide software suppliers with a holistic solution for monetization and usage management so they can get products to market fast, protect their I.P., and accelerate revenue growth.
    

Companies that understand usage are more confident that their price is aligned with value, but only 35% of companies can gather product usage data very well. We help them bridge that gap. The Revulytics solutions are a great addition to Flexera's Software Monetization platform. Together, we provide software companies with the data, insights, and technology they need to manage and monetize their digital solutions.

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MarTech Advisor: How do you plan to leverage the software usage analytics space in the U.S. with Revulytics' acquisition?

Segerer: The acquisition enables Flexera to deliver enhanced capabilities, including compliance data analytics, user behavior and telemetry, and in-app messaging. These provide software companies with the intelligence to make better pricing, compliance, roadmap, and strategy decisions.

Every software company today is interested in usage analytics to manage compliance, to improve products, and to implement consumption-based models. Companies that don't understand usage very well will risk falling behind their competition. We identified a gap, especially for companies that offer on-premises and hybrid solutions. They are often flying blind when it comes to usage. Revulytics is the clear leader for this space; we are now adding more power to their solution and go-to-market by making them a part of Flexera. Our vision is to provide technology companies with all the data they need to optimize their products and grow their revenues.

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MarTech Advisor: After the Revulytics acquisition, what's next for Flexera?

Segerer: As with every acquisition, the integration will keep us busy for a while. We will work closely with our joint customers to make sure we fully understand what is of the most value for them and how we can make them even more successful. No one knows in detail what the future will bring, but I am passionate about us further building out our portfolio and market leadership position by helping technology companies take products to market fast, unlock the value of their IP, and accelerate revenue growth from the edge to the cloud.

MarTech Advisor: Can you give us some details about how joining forces with Flexera has allowed you to improve customer relationships and grow your business? 

DeMarines: Revulytics has provided software usage analytics for software vendors for more than a decade; our solutions have been fueling data‑driven software development and license compliance. As part of Flexera, we're now able to offer a holistic and multi-layered approach with a stronger global footprint. Prior to the acquisition, Revulytics shared a significant number of customers with Flexera; the response from those customers so far has been overwhelmingly positive.

Our software usage analytics solutions will be an integral part of Flexera's monetization offering. Our solutions enable product teams to make better roadmap decisions, but also provide deeper insight to drive consumption-based pricing and more targeted user segmentation for highly effective in-application education, feedback, and promotion.

By deeply understanding user rights, usage, and compliance for on-premises, SaaS, and IoT solutions, Flexera is uniquely positioned to help software vendors grow top-line revenue, protect IP, and align products with customer needs.

MarTech Advisor: What are the biggest changes you see happening for your company's service lines and your general market strategy after this acquisition?

DeMarines: Our Usage Analytics offerings are a natural complement to Flexera's solutions. With joint forces, we can ensure customer success, excellent service, and growth for the Revulytics customer base, while also driving growth for our product lines into new customers and the Flexera install base.

We expect the integration of the Revulytics brand to be complete within the next 2 to 3 months, enabling a more focused go-to-market for our marketing and sales teams.

Flexera's acquisition of Revulytics provides added value to customers and new prospects from day 1. Of course, we are also reviewing different integration options to make it even easier and more valuable for customers that are using licensing, entitlement, and usage analytics in conjunction.

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MarTech Advisor: What's in store in the software monetization space for Flexera & Revulytics in 2020?

DeMarines: The lack of usage data is one of the biggest hurdles for aligning price with value. Usage data is required for roadmap and pricing decisions, compliance programs (e.g. for trust-but-verify models), and consumption-based business models.

A recent Flexera survey, the Monetization Monitor: Usage Management and Insights, indicates that while 91% of respondents show a great interest in usage data at first sight, the majority of companies are still in the planning stage or need to invest in manual work or engineering time to access the data. This creates inefficiencies and prevents the introduction of usage-based monetization models.

Usage Analytics is a growth market that will further evolve software monetization. Usage Intelligence leads to better product decisions that can be managed and enforced with licensing and entitlement management, while the combination of Compliance Intelligence and licensing creates a multi-layered solution for software suppliers. The combined offering is a game-changer for product executives that want to derive more value from their software while protecting their IP throughout their customers' journey.

About Revulytics

Revulytics offers cloud-based software usage analytics that give software producers deep visibility into how their products are being used and misused, providing them with actionable intelligence to generate revenue, optimize product development, and make data-driven decisions across their business. Its compliance analytics solution and turnkey services are used by leading software vendors to increase license revenue and globally reduce software piracy. 

About Flexera 

Flexera’s solutions help software and IoT companies build and deliver secure products while protecting intellectual property. Make a great first impression with your software with the gold standard for Windows and multi-platform installations. Leverage the power of open source and future-proof your business by eliminating compliance and security risk. Implement flexible monetization models, become a digital leader and grow recurring revenue while keeping your customers front and center. 

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