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Premier |
Professional |
| Efficient Software and Data Updating |
Entitlement-Based Software Delivery Send applications and automatic software 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 automatic software
updates. more
Send applications and
automatic software 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
automatic software 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. more
Only FLEXnet Connect has
n-tier software distribution, enabling you to stay connected to
customers managed by IT administrators.

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Server-Side ConditionsConditionally
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. more
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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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Customer Authentication FLEXnet
Connect can authenticate your customers to ensure they are eligible
to receive software packages. |
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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. |
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Improved Software DownloadingSoftware
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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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Controllable Update Severity Marking
an update as "critical" allows your application to react differently
than it would for "optional" updates. |
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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. |
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Display Information about Your UpdatesFLEXnet 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. |
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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. |
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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.
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Target Using Custom Client and Server Extensions FLEXnet Connect has pre-built conditions that allow
you to target your software 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. more
FLEXnet Connect has pre-built
conditions that allow you to target your software 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 TargetingSend
notifications only to customers running a specific platform or
operating system. |
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Bulletproof DownloadsFLEXnet 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.
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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. |
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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. |
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| Effective Customer Communication |
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. more
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 AuthenticationConfigure 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. |
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Send HTML Messages to Your UsersDeliver 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. |
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ePromotions AssistantThe ePromotions
Assistant saves you time by speeding you through the entire process
of creating and executing a promotional messaging campaign via
FLEXnet Connect. |
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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. |
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Targeted MessagingIn 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. |
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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. |
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| Configurable End-User Experience |
Vendor Specific Agent Specify which
version of the FLEXnet Connect agent you want to run against and
ensure your products only appear within that version of the
agent/client interface. |
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Global Software Manager The Software
Manager is a shared desktop tool enabling your end users to view the
list of available applications, automatic software 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. more
The Software Manager is a
shared desktop tool enabling your end users to view the list of
available applications, automatic software 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. |
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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.
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Web User InterfaceWhen 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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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Display Software Updates in 33 LanguagesShow your commitment to your international customers
by providing application and automatic software 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. more
Show your commitment to your
international customers by providing application and automatic
software 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 NotificationYour 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. |
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Proactive NotificationFLEXnet 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. |
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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. |
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| Powerful Application Usage Reporting |
Improved Reporting EngineFLEXnet
Connect’s reporting engine is now powered by Cognos®. It gives you a
best-of-breed rich reporting solution that provides unique business
insight into how your customers are using your products and adopting
your updates. Available to self-hosted Premier Edition customers
only. |
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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 automatic software updates they have installed, and
more. more
If your relationship with your
enterprise customers permits, you can generate reports on when and
how their end users are using your products, which automatic
software updates they have installed, and more.

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Event-Specific ReportsFLEXnet 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. |
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License Abuse ReportFLEXnet Connect
can now report on which serial numbers are used in registration,
allowing users to easily detect piracy and license abuse. |
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Remote Customer CheckupsMonitor 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. |
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Detailed Usage ReportingGet 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. |
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Time-Based Graphical or Grid ReportingFLEXnet 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. |
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Machine Profile ReportsIf 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. |
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Unique Usage or Total Usage ReportingFLEXnet 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. more
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. |
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User-Specific Report SettingsFLEXnet
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. |
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Easy Report GroupingIf you manage
multiple versions of a product, you can save them as a single group
and generate reports on the entire group at once. |
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| Powerful Publisher Management Portal |
Integration with FLEXnet DeliveryFLEXnet Connect is now integrated with FLEXnet
Delivery (sold separately). The two products are key components in
Acresso’s Entitlement Relationship Management Solution. more
FLEXnet Connect is now
integrated with Acresso’s FLEXnet Delivery (sold separately).
Whenever you update products in FLEXnet Connect, the same change
occurs automatically in FLEXnet Delivery, and vice versa.
The two products are key components in Acresso’s Entitlement
Relationship Management Solution. FLEXnet Delivery enables a
software producer’s end users to “pull” products and updates down
from a portal, while FLEXnet Connect allows software producers to
“push” products and updates out to their user base electronically.
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Flexible Password RequirementsTo
improve security, you now have the option of implementing more
stringent password requirements for login to FLEXnet Connect.
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Automated AlertsFLEXnet 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. |
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Mozilla Firefox Support You can now
access your FLEXnet Connect portal using the Mozilla Firefox
browser. |
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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. |
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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.
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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Preview TestingOften 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. |
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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. |
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| Easy-to-Use Customer Management Portal for
IT |
Flexible Customer Access RightsSoftware vendors now have the power to define their
customers' access rights to FLEXnet Connect, so your customers'
administrators can only perform actions that you authorize.
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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. |
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Target Using Company or Machine IDAfter 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. |
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Network Application ViewIT
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. |
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Publish Multiple Updates per Product or MachineSometimes 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. |
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Consolidated Update ViewYour
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. |
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SynchronizationIT 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.
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Simplified Installation and Deployment FLEXnet Connect now uses the newest installation
technologies from InstallAnywhere and InstallShield, creating
fast and efficient installation for the client and server
components. more
FLEXnet Connect now uses the
newest installation technologies from InstallAnywhere and
InstallShield, creating fast and efficient installation for the
client and server components.

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QuickStart Guide FLEXnet Connect has a
new QuickStart Guide, allowing new users to come up to speed quickly
on the full capabilities of FLEXnet Connect. |
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Improved Documentation FLEXnet
Connect's documentation has been restructured based on customer
feedback to include both task-based instruction and conceptual
overviews, making it even easier to find the information you
need. |
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| Secure, Scalable Architecture |
Secure CommunicationCommunication
between FLEXnet Connect agents, notification server, and publisher
and customer portals has been improved to ensure the highest levels
of security. |
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Streamlined Client APIs Updated and
streamlined Windows and Java agent APIs make it even easier to
integrate the FLEXnet Connect agent into your applications.
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WebSphere IntegrationFLEXnet Connect
is now compatible with IBM's WebSphere Application Server, enabling
FLEXnet Connect to excel in high-availability and secure
environments. |
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Built-in Web ServicesFLEXnet Connect
comes with a set of Web services you can call to help simplify and
automate your update and message delivery process. |
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Custom Plug-insSignificantly 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. |
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Scalable to Millions of UsersISVs 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. more
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. |
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Server Platform SupportFLEXnet Connect
server software now runs on the Windows, Solaris, and Linux
operating systems. |
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Windows Vista SupportFLEXnet Connect
supports Windows Vista, including support for the new User Access
security capabilities. |
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IIS Connector for FLEXnet ConnectFLEXnet Connect can now integrate into IIS through
the ISAPI. |
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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. |
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DB SupportFLEXnet Connect server
software is compatible with SQL Server, Oracle, and
Cloudscape. |
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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. |
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Self-Updating Client SoftwareFLEXnet
Connect client software will update itself when a new version is
posted to FLEXnet Connect Web site. |
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SSL SupportAll 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. |
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Invoked from Your Application as an EXEWhen 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. |
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Embeds in Your Windows and Java ApplicationsFLEXnet 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. |
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