TinyTERM Licensing Options

Century Software has two forms of licensing for product use:

Permanent

• Pay once for the life of the product.
• If a new version is released within 45 days of purchase, upgrade for free.
• Annual maintenance contract available for 25% of initial license cost.

Subscription

• Lower initial cost.
• Annual subscription covers all new releases, enhancements and patches.

License Types

Century offers a number of means of software product licensing, some which may better fit the deployment requirements than others. The following is a clarification of available license types.

Single-User Licensing

A single-user license allows the software to be installed and operated from only one desktop PC.

Per-User Licensing

Per-User software licensing requires a license per user using or accessing that software.

Per-Server Licensing

The Per-Server software license requires a license for each server running the software.

Multi-User Licensing

The Multi-User License allows the use of the software product on a given number of separate workstations or desktop PCs. A single license key is supplied which allows operation on the given total number of separate users. This same key is used for installation on each of the PCs, regardless of whether it is pushed from an installation server, installed manually on each PC, or installed through some other method. A Multi-User license does not allow the software to be installed on or run from a server. A concurrent license is required for that case.

Concurrent Licensing

Concurrent licensing is designed for Citrix or Microsoft Terminal Server environments, also known as thin client environments. In these environments, applications are centrally installed and managed on the server(s). Users access a server through a fat or thin client, and the application is displayed on the client, while running on the server.

A concurrent license key is required for each server, each specifying a maximum concurrent user count, which allows that many simultaneous users to run the software. In an environment with multiple servers, a license would be required for each server, keyed to the number of simultaneous users accessing each specified server.

Starting with version 4.64, a Server license key is required in order for TinyTERM to run on a Windows server, including Citrix and Microsoft Terminal Server. The key includes a user count, and automatically audits concurrent terminal emulator access running on that server.

Upgrade Licensing

Upgrade Licensing allows a one-time permanent replacement of the in-use version of a product to Century’s current version, for products not covered under an ongoing maintenance agreement.

Maintenance Licensing Agreement

Century’s yearly maintenance plan agreement allows technical support, access to upgrades, new version releases, prioritized bug fixes, and requested feature enhancements free of charge during the plan term.

To protect an organization from the future higher costs of upgrading, maintenance coverage is priced at a significantly lower price than upgrade pricing. Century’s maintenance program offers any and all releases, updates, patches and fixes that are released within the period of maintenance coverage free of charge, providing a significant savings compared to upgrade costs when Windows OS or security requirements change.

Currently, there are many security enhancements and updates that Microsoft and other operating system vendors make regularly to improve their products. This requires Century to update products on a regular basis for compatibility. These updates traditionally occur about every six months.

Subscription Licensing

Subscription licensing allows a company to obtain a product use license and maintenance coverage at a much lower initial cost, with a subscription license fee paid annually. Subscription licensing is renewed yearly at the same cost, and also allows adding or subtracting users, as well as receiving new versions and upgrades without incurring capital expense or negotiating any contract. It offers the flexibility to meet organizations needs for ever-changing environments easily. Century’s discounted subscription license pricing meets ongoing terminal emulation needs with the lowest overall cost.

Subscription license benefits

• One low annual cost covers product use licensing, support and version upgrades
• Quantities can be increased or decreased to match changing requirements
• Eliminates large capital expenditures, replaced with a lower-cost subscription expense
• Ideal for organizations requiring a fully supported terminal emulation solution, future-proofed against Windows updates, security fixes or changing government-mandated access requirements

The subscription cost includes:

• Concurrent or multi-user product use license
• Consolidation and replacement of other vendor’s licenses
• Ongoing security updates
• Compatibility with all future Microsoft Windows OS upgrades (Windows 7, 64-bit)
• Special enhancement requests
• Regular version upgrades, new releases, fixes and patches
• Full technical support

There are significant differences between maintenance licensing and subscription licensing, although they seem similar. With subscription licensing, organizations get the benefits of maintenance plus a product use license. If not renewed, the licenses will expire, and the product will stop working on the expiration date.

Although maintenance coverage also expires, organizations with multi-user or concurrent licenses will experience continued operation of the product after the maintenance coverage has expired.

TinyTERM Web Server Licensing

When used in compliance with its licensing agreement, TinyTERM Web Server (TTWS) offers Web browser-based terminal emulation access to other hosts for an unlimited number of web users. Companies that require external (non-permanent, unknown user) browser-based access to UNIX or IBM server applications could create a web page that causes a TinyTERM emulation to run in the browser. In this way, a website could be created that allowed an unlimited number of users per Web server to access a character-oriented application, without requiring that user to install and pay for a terminal emulator. A TTWS license is required for each Web server deploying such external emulation access, rather than having to identify each user and have them individually license and install TinyTERM.

TinyTERM Web Server is not intended to provide a corporate site license for internal desktop terminal emulation requirements. Concurrent or multi-user licensing is required for permanent internal user access. TTWS is not licensed for installation or operation on Citrix or Microsoft Terminal Server systems. Deploying TTWS by modifying the installation such that any number of internal corporate users gain terminal emulation host access by clicking on a Web server link, and thereby installing the TTWS client software permanently on their PC and running outside a browser is in violation of the TTWS license.

Due to many misuses in use and deployment using the TTWS License, the product was discontinued in 2006. Maintenance agreements and upgrades may require moving to concurrent or multi-user licensing if deemed outside acceptable licensed use.