Microsoft Licenses Antipiracy Technology to InishTech

Citing an incongruity between the Software Licensing and Protection Services (SLPS) and its core business line, Microsoft has announced that it has licensed the technology to InishTech, an Ireland-based startup. Via InishTech, the Redmond company is essentially re-launching SLPS, which managed to gather a crowd of just 120 customers after being released back in 2007. According to the software giant, InishTech was born through a collaboration between Microsoft IP Ventures and Enterprise Ireland. Microsoft explained that it would hold a minority interest in the startup as the company will continue to evolve.

“New development environments provide major benefits in terms of speed and cost to ISVs but can also create security challenges,” said Eddie Amos, general manager, Platform and Tools at Microsoft. “SLP Services, and now InishTech, fills a security need by offering superior code protection as well as flexible licensing management services.”

Introduced initially in mid-2007, and subsequently offered to customers worldwide in October of the same year, the Software Licensing and Protection Services is a collection of solutions set up to integrate with third-party software products in order help developers ensure that customers respect the end user license agreement. From now on, the Code Protector SDK offered as the backbone of SLPS will be available from InishTech and not from Microsoft. In this sense, SLPS allows software owners to protect their code not only against piracy but also against hacking and even reverse engineering.

InishTech will also deal with the existing customer base of the technology that it works to expand, moving forward. The Irish startup now owns all rights to SLP Services, which it has acquired from Microsoft, along with licenses for any related intellectual property. The technology will continue to be available worldwide.

“We are committed to offering our customers the most flexible licensing and IP security solutions possible,” added Aidan Gallagher, CEO and co-founder of InishTech. “Software publishers have invested thousands of hours into their products, and InishTech will help provide code protection and flexible licensing without adversely impacting their product development life cycle or compromising the functionality of their applications. We believe SLP Services is the quickest to deploy, easiest to use and most feature-rich solution in the market today.”