A license is a grant of rights, from Frontline Systems to you, to use our software in specified ways.  We offer several types of software licenses, to best meet your needs.

In Frontline Solvers, your license is associated with you, via your email address and password, and may be used on more than one PC. For example, you can run SolverSetup to install the software on your office PC, your company laptop, and your PC at home. But only you can use the software, and only on one of these computers at a time.  To give you this flexibility, our license agreement specifies that you must use your real email address and password, and you must not 'share' these with anyone else.

 

Using Your License: Login and Logout

When you first use Frontline Solvers on a new computer, you will be prompted to login. Enter the email address and password that you used to register on Solver.com or AnalyticSolver.com. Once you’ve done this, your identity will be “remembered,” so you won’t have to login every time you start using our software.

You can login and logout at any time, using the Log In and Log Out buttons on the Solver Home tab. If you share use of a single physical or virtual computer with other users, be careful to login with your own email and password, and log out when you’re done – if you don’t, other users could access private files in your cloud account, or use up your allotted CPU time or storage.

Upgrading From Earlier Versions

If you’re upgrading from Frontline Solvers V2016 or earlier, please contact us before you download and run the V2017 SolverSetup program.  You will need a new V2017 license to run the software with your existing models.  If you install V2017 in place of an earlier version, initially you will have a license for Analytic Solver Basic, which enables use of all Analytic Solver features for data mining, optimization and simulation, but only for limited-size models -- you won't be able to get full solution results for large models, until we are able to upgrade your license to V2017.

Using the Cloud Version

Your license enables you to use Analytic Solver for both desktop Excel and Excel for the web. You can access Excel workbooks or CSV files that you have uploaded to your cloud account, via the dropdown list on the Solver Home tab.  Note, however, that just as you may login on only one PC at a time, you can login on only one of the desktop or cloud version at a time.  If you open a browser and login to Analytic Solver on the same PC where you've been using the desktop Excel version, this will "log you out" of the desktop version (though Excel will keep running).

Evaluation License and Test Runs

An Evaluation License is a single user, short term license, normally free of charge, to enable you to evaluate suitability of our software prior to purchase of another license type.  Such a license may allow only limited-size models and/or datasets, or may simply allow you to confirm that a model can be solved, without providing full solution information ("Test Runs"). If you are evaluating our software for a legitimate commercial application where you need to see full solution information, you are welcome to contact us to request a short-term, complimentary Single-User License (see below) -- we simply want to understand and agree on your goals in the evaluation.

Single-User Licenses

A Single-User License is our standard "paid" license granted to a single named individual.  As noted above, this license allows you to install and use the software on more than one computer -- such as a desktop, laptop, home computer, or virtual computer -- but you may use the license only on one computer at a time.  When you move from one computer to another, you should log out on one and log in on the other. As a convenience, if you start using our software on a new computer when you haven’t logged out on the old computer, the software will let you know, and offer to automatically log you out on the other computer.  Note that, if you allow your license to expire, the software will display an error message if you attempt to run it after the expiration date.

Multiple-User Licenses

A Multiple-User License is our standard "paid" multi-user or "concurrent use" license, normally purchased by an organization.  With this license, several different individuals may use the software, but only one of them at any given time.  Frontline must receive a complete list of the email addresses of the individuals who are entitled to share use of the license.  Each of the users may install the software on more than one computer, just as for a Single-User License.  Any of the named users can temporarily "acquire" the license and use the software, but only one at a time, per Multiple-User License.  If another one of the named users seeks to acquire the license, he/she will receive a message indicating that the license is in use -- this will normally include the email address of the user who is "holding" the license.  The second user must wait until the first user logs out and releases the license. A user whose email address is listed on several Multiple-User Licenses will "acquire" a license as soon as one of them becomes free.

How the Licensing System Works

As noted above, license management software embedded in our products administers and controls use of licenses.  Information about licenses is maintained by a "license server" in a central database, and is downloaded to the PC where the software is running and temporarily "persisted" there.  This means that the "client" software -- Analytic Solver -- must periodically communicate with the central license server, over the public Internet.  Once the current license status is "refreshed", the client software can continue to run (without access to the public Internet) for a period of time, called the "License Duration," that is encoded as part of the license.

This license management system provides the flexibility to allow one named individual to use the software on multiple computers.  But in situations where this system cannot be used -- for example, in applications where a computer must be totally isolated from the Internet, or where no risk of a delay in "license acquisition" is acceptable, there is a backup licensing mechanism in our products, that relies on a "license code," stored in a text file named Solver.lic, and tied to a "lock code" -- an encoded "fingerprint" of the hardware on which the software is running.  Please contact us if you feel you will need this backup mechanism.

License Terms and Renewals

All of our licenses have a limited term -- Frontline does not offer "permanent" licenses.  The license term coincides with our Annual Support service term -- Frontline does not offer licenses without Annual Support.  The minimum term is one year; you can choose two years or three years and realize savings.

As of October 1, 2021, our prices for annual software licenses are the same each year (in the past, we offered "renewal licenses" at lower prices than first-year licenses).  But we offer discounts if you prepay for more than one year at a time.

  • If a one-year license is priced at $1,000, a two-year license will be priced at $750 - $760 per year, so the two-year total cost is $1,500 to $1,520 -- a savings of 24% to 25%.
  • If a one-year license is priced at $1,000, a three-year license will be priced at $650 - $660 per year, so the three-year total cost is $1,950 to $1,980 -- a savings of 34% to 35%.

For customers familiar with our former "renewal license" prices, a two-year license yields essentially the same total cost today as a two-year license under our former pricing: If a one-year license is priced at $1,000, buying a two-year license costs just $500 for the second / renewal year -- since the total cost is $1,500. This simply requires a commitment up-front to two years. A three-year costs less than under our former pricing.

Subscription vs. "Permanent" License

Like other software vendors, Frontline Systems formerly offered "permanent" licenses, where the license had no expiration date.  But computer hardware and software does not last forever -- in fact it changes rather rapidly.  In recognition of this reality, Frontline has moved to subscription licenses.  A look at Frontline Systems company history or our press release archives shows that, over the last 5 years, we've released 9 major new versions of our products, radically re-making our product line.  During the same time, Windows 7, 8 and 10, Excel 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Excel for the Web have been released, multi-core PCs have become common (and Frontline's newer releases have fully exploited them), and cloud computing has emerged.  There's been a lot of change over the last 5 years, and we are quite certain that the rate of change is accelerating.  The lesson is that a "permanent" license does not really have a permanent value.