NetManage Drops Source Code Licensing Fee for Librados Adapters

June 5, 2007 Dan Burger

A fundamental change in licensing has put NetManage customers on the road to royalty-free source code used for transforming legacy applications to Web-based applications. According to a NetManage announcement, the company is offering direct access to the code used in its Librados Adapters without the charges previously associated with this product.

Librados was designed to expose the functionality and data of backend systems for integration with application servers, Web servers, or stand-alone environments. Like other application modernization products its purpose is to convert enterprise applications to Web applications while integrating business processes from other enterprise information systems. The key is always the amount of programming effort required. NetManage, and everyone else in the application modernization tools business, claim the programming work is minimal.

Because the minimal programming benefit has not sufficiently induced companies to undertake modernization projects, NetManage has provided the additional incentive of open access to its code and the elimination of pre-payments and continuing royalty payments.

“By changing how Librados is licensed, NetManage is providing enterprise users with an additional option to the traditional ‘buy or build’ scheme,” said Jason Bloomberg, senior analyst at ZapThink. “Buying a solution might not provide the insight and flexibility needed to leverage an adapter down the line and building is always the more time-consuming option. NetManage Librados Adapters are a blend of the two–customers can purchase a high quality, standards-based adapter and own the source code for reuse as well.”

“We have heard the demand for greater flexibility to customize and reuse source code from our customers,” said Zvi Alon, chairman, president, and CEO at NetManage. “Providing unlimited access and use of Librados Adapters’ source code will not only speed the development of initial implementations but also provide our customers with the most cost effective option to accelerate future integration projects as code is reused.”

Bloomberg’s and Alon’s comments were included in a NetManage press release.

Librados Adapters are available on a two-tier pricing scale based on company size.