Publisher vs FrameMaker

[Mike Carter - iccad]

bernhold at orange.qtp.ufl.edu (David E. Bernholdt) writes:
>I do not know what the Publisher costs, but we have it licensed for half
>of our 60 workstations - we tend to have a lot of people writing papers.
>This sounds pretty much like Frame's license server to me.
      ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I couldn't let this one go by!  There is a profound difference between
buying many copies of a software package, and having floating (network)
licensing.  When you have floating licenses, users in the ENTIRE network
can share access to useful software, instead of just a privileged few.
With floating licenses, it doesn't matter WHICH nodes in the network use
the software, so long as no more than the licensed NUMBER of nodes use the
software at any one time.  A "license server" handles the software
check-in and check-out process which monitors the number of currently
active users. 

Companies like Frame (for documentation software), Cadence (for IC design
tools), and an ever-increasing number of other software vendors, deserve a
lot of credit for their support of floating licenses (also called network
licensing, or software brokering).  For software purchasers like Mitel,
network licensing is the only approach we're willing to consider; there
simply isn't any other approach which is practical when you have a large
number of workstations.

Mike Carter
Mitel Semiconductor
uucp:  uunet!mitel!carter
Phone:  (613) 592-2122 x3326
FAX:  (613) 592-4784