NEW! Entitlement-Based Software Delivery
Send applications and updates to users based on their maintenance status, ensuring that only eligible customers - such as those with valid maintenance and support contracts - receive your software and updates.
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N-Tier Software Distribution
Only FLEXnet Connect has n-tier software distribution, enabling you to stay connected to customers managed by IT administrators.
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NEW! Server-Side Conditions
Conditionally deliver updates and messages to your users based on information stored in your internal systems, such as a CRM or customer support solution. This helps ensure that the right updates and messages always go to the right users.
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File Synchronization
Software can now be delivered by synchronizing a local directory from a central web server.  This allows developers to easily push out updated software without building installers.

Product Additions
Users of FLEXnet Connect can now deliver additions to the product without needing to deliver full product updates. Additions allow you to keep track of additional components of a large software package that need their own versioning and updating processes.

CMP Sync Data Administration
Publishers using N-tier FLEXnet Connect servers now have greater control over publishing updates to Customer Management Portals (CMPs). Publishers can now set rules to determine what type of updates should be sent to specific CMPs, either manually or through a Web services interface.

Customer Authentication
FLEXnet Connect can authenticate your customers to ensure they are eligible to receive software packages.

Direct Software Distribution
If your software is sold to the consumer market or to end users who can update their own machines, FLEXnet Connect has single update distribution. All your users will come directly to a central FLEXnet Connect server to receive your updates.

Improved Software Downloading
Software can be downloaded before displaying itself to the end-user, creating a better user experience for large downloads.  Cancelled downloads are also cached, making it easy for the user to restart lengthy downloads.

Software Basket
The Software Basket allows your customers to download and install multiple software packages in one integrated process. You decide if an update can be added to the Software Basket or if it must be installed individually.

Customized Update Scheduling
If the timing of an update is critical, you can schedule your updates to start and end distribution on a certain date.

Controllable Update Severity
Marking an update as "critical" allows your application to react differently than it would for "optional" updates.

Customized Updates List
FLEXnet Connect automatically determines which software product and version your customer is running and displays only the software packages and updates appropriate to them.

Display Information about Your Updates
FLEXnet Connect provides your users information to help them decide if they want to install the software, including the title, description, size of the deliverable, estimated installation time, and installation instructions. Optionally, FLEXnet Connect allows you to link to release notes to provide users more in-depth information.

Multiple Installation Formats
FLEXnet Connect client has built-in support to download and install many different types of update files including OCI, EXE, MSP, MSI, and JAR files. Additionally, FLEXnet Connect can now download any file format including CAB, ZIP, and RTP.

FLEXnet Connect Message Portlet
Messages can now be published through a Java tab library into Web Applications. This allows users to send messages to applications that do not have traditional client interfaces.

Target Using Custom Client and Server Extensions
FLEXnet Connect has pre-built conditions that allow you to target your updates to the right users. If you need to extend this targeting, you can author custom client or server-side conditions to determine if an update should be applied.
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Unique Platform Targeting
Send notifications only to customers running a specific platform or operating system.

Bulletproof Downloads
FLEXnet Connect uses advanced download technology to ensure your updates get to all your customers, including those with the slowest dial-up connection. With proprietary background downloading, checkpoint restart, and bandwidth throttling technologies, FLEXnet Connect ensures your customers get your updates with a minimum of interruptions.

Staggered Delivery
FLEXnet Connect lets you distribute your updates to only a percentage of your customers. By staggering your update delivery, you can get feedback on an update's performance from users before deploying it to your entire user base. Staggered delivery also enables you to more evenly distribute the update load on your notification servers.

Multiple Product Version Support
If multiple versions of your software co-exist on an end user's machine, FLEXnet Connect can deliver version-specific updates to any one version without affecting the others.

Promotional Campaign Support
FLEXnet Connect makes it easy for you to execute promotional campaigns by automatically sending a series of HTML messages at predefined times (such as whenever they click on a certain product feature) to the people using or evaluating your software.
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Update and Message Authentication
Configure FLEXnet Connect to automatically authenticate every update and message before displaying them to your end users, ensuring they only see updates and messages that you digitally certify.

Send HTML Messages to Your Users
Deliver HTML messages directly to the person using your software. Announce new product releases, upcoming Webinars, local events and trade shows, and much more. While traditional communication tools like email only reach the person who purchased or registered your product, FLEXnet Connect ensures that your messages will reach the actual users.

ePromotions Assistant
The ePromotions Assistant saves you time by speeding you through the entire process of creating and executing a promotional messaging campaign via FLEXnet Connect.

Customized Message Scheduling
Schedule your messages to start and end distribution on a certain date. This is important if the timing of a message is critical around promotion dates. This prevents you from having to log in to disable a message on December 31 at the end of a promotion.

Targeted Messaging
In addition to targeting your messages to customers with a specific product and version, you can add conditions against file versions, file timestamps, and registry settings. FLEXnet Connect now features an expression builder to allow the combination of conditions into an "and/or" expression for maximum flexibility and saved reusable conditions.

Staggered Message Delivery
FLEXnet Connect lets you distribute your messages to only a percentage of your customers at a time. You can test the results and alter the message to improve performance.

Global Software Manager
The Software Manager is a shared desktop tool enabling your end users to view the list of available applications, updates, and messages for all their FLEXnet Connect-enabled software. Including the global Software Manager with your software and having it list your products is fully optional and can be done with zero engineering.
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Product-Specific Software Manager
Optionally include your own Software Manager - carrying your branding and listing only messages about your product - that can be launched from inside your software.

Server Update Manager
Designed to help you update your server software, the new Server Update Manager is a standalone application that can automatically check for and install server software updates on a scheduled basis. The Update Manager is completely configurable so you can check for updates on different schedules for different products and/or different types of updates.

Web User Interface
When integrated into your application, FLEXnet Connect provides you the choice of displaying your software through a Web-based interface. The Web interface is designed for maximum flexibility, enabling your users to view and select multiple updates to download. It is easily customized to include custom categories and your product logo.

Wizard User Interface
When integrated into your application, FLEXnet Connect provides you the choice of displaying your software and messages through a Wizard user interface. The Wizard interface is designed for maximum ease of use, enabling users to install single updates with a simple mouse click. It is easily customized to include your product bitmap.

Create a Custom UI within Your Application
FLEXnet Connect allows you to author your own custom user interface using our published APIs to programmatically control the experience. FLEXnet Connect will even pass back the download status to your application so you can display your own download progress bar.

Display Updates in 33 Languages
Show your commitment to your international customers by providing application and update messages in their local language. FLEXnet Connect localizes your runtime strings according to Microsoft's exacting translation guidelines, enabling you to deliver your message text in any of the 33 supported languages.
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User-Initiated Notification
Your users can initiate a check for new software via a menu option integrated into your application. They can also check for new deliverables from a shortcut or from the shared Software Manager tool.

Proactive Notification
FLEXnet Connect silently checks if you have new software or messages ready for delivery each time users open your applications. If they are, FLEXnet Connect automatically notifies all your Web-connected customers, keeping them current.

Critical/Optional Notification
Some notifications are crucial to the operation of your application, while others are not. FLEXnet Connect lets you define your software updates or message as critical or optional, ensuring your users know about an important patch or message the very next time they use your application.

Customer End-User Reporting
If your relationship with your enterprise customers permits, you can generate reports on when and how their end users are using your products, which updates they have installed, and more.
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Event-Specific Reports
FLEXnet Connect can now generate reports detailing every step of the updating process, so you know not only how many users downloaded an update, but how many started the installation and successfully installed the files.

License Abuse Report
FLEXnet Connect can now report on which serial numbers are used in registration, allowing users to easily detect piracy and license abuse.

Remote Customer Checkups
Monitor the health and status of any customer's FLEXnet Connect portal - including those portals without an IT administrator -to ensure that important updates and messages are being successfully delivered to their machines.

Detailed Usage Reporting
Get the facts on your installed base of customers and their current software version. FLEXnet Connect reporting component tells you how many active customers you have and what release each specific customer is running.
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Messages Viewed Reporting
See how many of your customers have viewed your latest messages and what messages provide the highest click-through rates. Refine your positioning by changing your message and monitoring how it affects your results.

Time-Based Graphical or Grid Reporting
FLEXnet Connect reporting can be viewed in either a simple data grid or data graphed over time. The grid provides a snap shot of your usage data. The time-based reporting provides a graphical view of your usage data using daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly totals.

Machine Profile Reports
If your relationship with your users explicitly permits, FLEXnet Connect now allows you to tie one or many pieces of data - serial number and operating system for instance - to a specific machine.

Unique Usage or Total Usage Reporting
FLEXnet Connect reports can be run against unique usage or total usage. Unique usage measures the number of unique users of your software, while total usage measures the total number of times that users have interacted with FLEXnet Connect.
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Savable, Shareable Reports
Reports can now be permanently saved as an XML, XLS, or CSV file and shared with other team members. You have the option of saving data from a specific report instances or saving the report criteria so that you or team members can rerun it later.

User-Specific Report Settings
FLEXnet Connect makes it easy to define your own default report settings (such as date range, product groups, and graph types), so that each time you log in, your reporting preferences are automatically available.

Easy Report Grouping
If you manage multiple versions of a product, you can save them as a single group and generate reports on the entire group at once.

Automated Alerts
FLEXnet Connect will proactively notify you the moment potential problems occur - such as your notification server going down - so you can fix it before it significantly impacts your customers.

Mozilla Firefox Support
You can now access your FLEXnet Connect portal using the Mozilla Firefox browser.

Update and Message Assistants
Your FLEXnet Connect portal contains update and message assistants to walk you through the process of publishing a new update or message. Inline help and example data are also included to make the process even easier. Now the assistants feature the ability to jump directly to the data you need to edit without stepping through the entire wizard, making the editing process even quicker.

Publish Multiple Updates per Product or Machine
Sometimes a product or machine needs more than one update or message. Using their FLEXnet Connect portal, an IT administrator can publish an array of updates and message to the same product.

Consolidated Product View
Your FLEXnet Connect portal has a product view where you can get a list of all software and messages published for your product. This view allows you to easily manage an array of products, updates and messages even allowing you to view messages in multiple languages.

Customize End-User Experience
Use your FLEXnet Connect portal to create custom categories and upload your custom product or company logo. Making these server settings allows you to update and change them at any time.

Role-Based User Authentication
FLEXnet Connect's role-based security model lets you define the access rights and privileges of every user in your group, so the wrong user can never access unauthorized software data or perform restricted tasks. Authentication is now done at the task and product level.

Preview Testing
Often you want a quick look at a new patch or message before sending it to your QA lab or out to your customers. With preview testing, you can preview the end user interface with the need to have your application installed on your machine.

Localization Support
Localizing your FLEXnet Connect portal in your native language is easy. FLEXnet Connect groups all the text strings in one area and provides documentation to assist you in translating the screens.

Branded Customer Portal
Provide your customers with a unified, branded user experience by customizing FLEXnet Connect portal they use to manage your software with your own logos, messaging, hyperlinks, and more.

Target Using Company or Machine ID
After synchronization, IT administrators can target your software and messages to specific machines, making it easy for them to distribute your applications and hot fixes only to those workstations that need them.

Network Application View
IT administrators using their FLEXnet Connect portal have a dedicated view into all servers or desktops running your software. The view lists all machines running your software along with customizable profile data about that machine or your software.

Publish Multiple Updates per Product or Machine
Sometimes a product or machine needs more than one update or message. Using their FLEXnet Connect portal, an IT administrator can publish an array of updates and message to the same product.

Consolidated Update View
Your customers' FLEXnet Connect portal has a product view where an IT administrator can get a list of all updates and messages published for their machines. This view allows them to easily manage an array of products, updates, and messages.

Synchronization
IT administrators can get instant access to your newly published software and messages. The synchronization process can be setup to run automatically or only on demand. It can be configured to synchronize only the update metadata or both the update metadata and the update files.

NEW! WebSphere Integration
FLEXnet Connect is now compatible with IBM's WebSphere Application Server, enabling FLEXnet Connect to excel in high-availability and secure environments.

ENHANCED! Built-in Web Services
FLEXnet Connect comes with a set of Web services you can call to help simplify and automate your update and message delivery process.

Custom Plug-ins
Significantly extend FLEXnet Connect's functionality by integrating your own custom plug-ins into the updating process. Whether you want updates to call your CRM system to authenticate end users or create user-specific URLs for more secure delivery, plug-ins make it easy.

Scalable to Millions of Users
ISVs can invest in FLEXnet Connect with confidence, knowing that no matter how big your user base gets, FLEXnet Connect will effectively scale to meet the increased demand while requiring a minimum of additional servers.
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Complete Client Platform Support
FLEXnet Connect supports virtually any client platform, including Windows 95, 98, NT, 2000, and XP, as well as Mac OS X, Solaris, Linux, HP-UX, AIX, or any flavor of UNIX.

Server Platform Support
FLEXnet Connect server software now runs on the Windows, Solaris, and Linux operating systems.

NEW! Windows Vista Support
FLEXnet Connect supports Windows Vista, including support for the new User Access security capabilities.

IIS Connector for FLEXnet Connect
FLEXnet Connect can now integrate into IIS through the ISAPI.

Zero Engineering Integration
Integrating FLEXnet Connect into your products now requires absolutely no engineering, no coding, and no developers! Simply run the Integration Wizard and your product is automatically configured to use FLEXnet Connect. It's that easy.

DB Support
FLEXnet Connect server software is compatible with SQL Server, Oracle, and Cloudscape.

Proxy and Firewall Support
FLEXnet Connect passes seamlessly through your users' firewalls by using both standard HTTP/HTTPS for all communications and all proxy information stored in the browser, and by allowing the setting and storing of custom proxy information.

Self-Updating Client Software
FLEXnet Connect client software will update itself when a new version is posted to FLEXnet Connect Web site.

SSL Support
All communication between client and server can use HTTP or HTTPS. If either FLEXnet Connect Notification Server or Download Server is set up with SSL, the client will automatically connect to the server using HTTPS, making your connection secure.

Invoked from Your Application as an EXE
When you invoke FLEXnet Connect as an EXE, the default implementation silently checks for an Internet connection and for updates scheduled for delivery. The user is only notified if relevant updates are found.

ENHANCED! Embeds in Your Windows and Java Applications
FLEXnet Connect has a robust default implementation that works for most software vendors without any modifications. If you want to customize the experience, however, FLEXnet Connect is built on a set of published Windows and JAVA APIs that have been updated and streamlined, giving you the flexibility to create almost any customer experience.