Are your engineering managers frustrated about paying for software licenses that aren’t being used in certain regions? If so, you’re not alone. As engineering organizations expand across borders, license visibility and cost allocation become increasingly difficult to manage.
So, how are your license cost alignments currently structured, and can a tool like LAMUM bring greater clarity and efficiency to your engineering software management?
The Challenge of Licensing Across Geographic Boundaries
Let’s talk about licensing across global offices. For example, imagine sharing CAD licenses from your U.S. office with your team in Malaysia.
Is this compliant with your engineering software license agreement?
The answer, in most cases, is no.
Each vendor has its own rules and restrictions, and failing to comply can lead to serious compliance fines during software audits. Typically, sharing licenses between regions such as the Western Hemisphere and Eastern Hemisphere is prohibited, unless you upgrade to a Global License, which often comes with a higher cost.
Even sharing licenses between countries can be disallowed, depending on the vendor’s terms.
Are Maintenance Costs Distributed Fairly?
In global organizations, maintenance and software costs are often unevenly distributed. Some subsidiaries may pay more or less based on the number of engineers, active projects, or available licenses.
To resolve this, many companies are exploring centralized license management with a usage-based billing policy – where each subsidiary is billed according to its actual license usage.
Key Questions to Understand Before Consolidating Licenses
Before you centralize, it’s important to analyze your organization’s software usage:
- Which regions use specific engineering software?
- Where are key decisions made – at the regional head office or locally?
- How many license servers are operating in each region?
- Which software tools are managed per server?
- Is the utilization rate consistent across all locations?
- How do time zones or working hours impact license usage?
Understanding these factors allows companies to make informed decisions on license consolidation and billing optimization.
Understanding FlexLM and Floating Licenses
Many engineering applications operate using floating (concurrent) licenses, commonly known as FlexLM licenses.
These allow companies to install unlimited seats of the software, while the number of concurrent users is limited to a predefined count set during purchase.
Some organizations choose to centralize all licenses to a single server that serves all users worldwide. This offers greater transparency and visibility into license availability and can lead to more balanced utilization across regions.
However, such a setup also comes with challenges — particularly around compliance and regional license restrictions.
Why Centralized License Management Matters
A centralized license server helps companies:
- Track real-time license usage and identify underutilized resources.
- Prevent compliance risks due to cross-border license sharing.
- Improve budget allocation across teams and regions.
- Prepare for audits with accurate and verifiable data.
With LAMUM, engineering teams gain a complete overview of license usage, ensuring compliance and cost control without unnecessary overhead.
How TeamEDA and LAMUM Help You Stay Compliant
At TeamEDA, we help engineering organizations optimize license usage and avoid compliance pitfalls. We’ve seen companies fail audits because CAD or EDA licenses were shared across geographic boundaries — often unknowingly.
Software vendors conduct audits not just for compliance, but as a means to generate additional revenue from noncompliant customers.
Running a global license can be prohibitively expensive, but LAMUM helps you determine whether it’s the right strategy. Our insights enable you to:
- Assess actual usage at each site.
- Evaluate whether an extended or global licensing model is necessary.
- Engage your vendor with accurate, data-backed insights.
Start Your Free 30-Day Trial of LAMUM
Want to know if your organization would pass a vendor license audit?
Run a free 30-day trial of LAMUM today and discover how to:
- Identify compliance gaps.
- Centralize license management.
- Optimize engineering software spend.
Talk to our technical experts, and start gaining full visibility and control over your engineering software licenses.
