Protecting your application against piracy

A brand new actor is coming to the software protection market.

His name is... MICROSOFT!

I've been using a solution named Interlok for years (http://www.paceap.com).

Unfortunately, these guys do not really have the sense of the details: the last update of their web site states that a new version (5.3) shipped in October 2005.... :-(

The version I'm using is 5.6 for Windows. Well, it does no longer matter, as I'm going to switch to Microsoft's solution.

Why?

Reason #1: Interlok does not allow me to protect my managed code. They have no intention to change that. This is not acceptable since most of the market is moving to .NET.

Reason #2: Setting up the solution is a kind of.... hard! On the paper, things look simple. But once you've coded a custom solution do avoid their ugly screens, it becomes a nightmare. Even though their API is well written, the things happening behind the scenes are unpredictable. For some odd reason, the simple fact of disabling your network adapter will cause your application to loose the license...!

Reason #3: The cost of Interlok is almost 1$ per activation. This cost will not include the infrastructure. Actually, I'm spending:

- 1$ per license -> almost $10000 per year

- hosting: 2 dedicated servers for the activation --> $15000 per year

- support cost: lot of complaints --> 3 support guys at almost $20000 per year

This makes a total of $45000, which does not include hidden costs.

I will certainly be one of Microsoft's solution early adopters.

For more info, see:

SLPS Web Site

http://www.microsoft.com/slps

SLPS in MSDN

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/slps/default.aspx

Stay tuned for more news about my tests of that technology.