The Spread Of Remarketed Software Could Be A European Response To The Economic Crisis

The software industry continues to immerse itself in restrictive business practices, as vendors: fiercely defend their output as intellectual property; boldly charge for product maintenance, including fixing product defects; and restrictively control their channels to market. Today's intellectual property terms within software license agreements prevent end users from disposing of unused software, although these terms aren't, in principal, applicable under European law. In fact, reselling software has been established in Germany, where traders of remarketed software are active and the regulatory authorities/regional courts have delivered rulings that support the transactions, not the software vendors. As the economic climate worsens, other enterprises throughout Europe could take the opportunity to sell off unused software licenses and purchase used software at a discount. Vendors could also benefit from this business practice by creating their own third-party market. Despite such potential, Forrester believes this trend is unlikely to threaten software vendors' business models in the short and medium term.