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Jam Khan

Jam Khan

Director Product Management, Entitlement Management - SafeNet

Jam Khan joined SafeNet in April 2010 as Director, Product Management, Entitlement Management. Jam has more than 13 years of experience in the software industry with roles in technical sales, marketing, engineering and product management. This unique breadth of experience combined with extensive international exposure enables Jam to provide leadership in all aspects of the product life cycle including defining market requirements, launching products and driving innovation and vision.

4 Posts

Mar 29
2012 

What is Your Software Licensing Headache?

by Jam Khan

Spiceworks is a community of nearly 2 million IT pros with a very active online forum.  Their roles predominantly are network support, help desk and network administration pros; basically, the administrators of software products for their organizations.

One question that was posed to Spiceworks members asked specifically what their biggest headache was with a very well know software vendor.  The responses flew in and these IT pros were consistent in their dissatisfaction with key licensing elements.  As a software vendor, this information is invaluable in setting up your own licensing structure.

I shared the following comment with this group:

“One of the challenges with licensing schemes like some enterprise software vendors is that a lot of burden is placed on the end user to determine what type of licensing works best. Often users feel like they need Ivy league MBAs just to sort through myriad of options. Software companies that use licensing technology with customer experience in mind will look to monitor key data points, such as usage, number of assets etc, in order to determine what the best licensing option is for a particular customer or market segment. However, too often licensing technology is lumped together with enforcement which has a generally negative reaction from customers.

The challenge with large enterprise software vendors is that it’s sheer size and dominance allows it to take a stand that imposes licensing rather than focus more on customer experience. There are ways to use licensing technology in a way to really make the customer’s life a lot easier. We certainly see a lot of that at SafeNet when we engage with software vendors.

Are you keeping the customer in mind when you develop your software licensing process, or are you giving your customers unnecessary headaches too?

Oct 5
2011 

Does Your Software Licensing Solution Offer Interoperability?

by Jam Khan

Rarely does an IT system work better in a silo, so a dialogue about the benefits of interoperability seems as redundant as making the case for world peace. Interoperability is a widely used, and often abused, term, but for those that deal with it at a practical level, with poorly integrated systems, it can be somewhat of a holy grail. This is particularly true for electronic license and entitlement management systems.

Electronic licenses and entitlements are unique in that they require coordination between IT, Operations, Product Management and Engineering. They must be integrated into the fabric of a software company’s products, and work seamlessly with order processing and fulfillment systems.

Oct 4
2010 

The Virtual Revolution Will Not Be Televised

by Jam Khan

“The revolution will not be televised”, the singer Gil Scott-Heron once famously sang. I think he was trying to say that information and truth, cannot be packaged up in a nice “made for TV” special. In fact, by the time it’s happened, it’s probably already passed you by. I can’t help but feel this way about virtualization.  We’ve been hearing the hype for years. No one denies the unbelievable impact it has had, and the value it continues to promise. This is not one of those technologies where you think “if”, it’s really more of “when” and “how”.

May 7
2010 

iPad Gives Food for Thought

by Jam Khan

Let me start of by apologizing to both Apple enthusiasts, and those on the other end of the spectrum who expected this to be an discussion about the much debated iPad. It is not. While passions run high about iPad’s place in today’s market one thing is clear. Whether its time is now later is a moot point. What it does is shine yet another spotlight on the changing face of technology. The iPad builds on momentum created by the iPhone that is dramatically effecting how we consume technology.

So what does all this have to do with licensing. The new workforce is comprised of a generation that cannot live within the strict boundaries traditionally defined by IT. They also see the unprecedented access afforded by applications like iTunes as something expected, rather than their predecessors, that still struggle with the piracy implications. They expect their software to be consumed in the manner most convenient to them, be it the home laptop, iPhone or iPad. Ask yourself how often you’ve wanted to access your favorite on-line service and just assumed that there must be “an app for that”. I have iPhone apps for most of the web applications for which I used to use my laptop (hurry up United, you’re lagging).