The Software Licensing and Protection Services (SLP Services) are a new suite of solutions delivered by Microsoft, designed to narrow the gap between the limitations of the end user license agreement and what users will ultimately be able to do with the software. Thomas Lindeman, group product manager of SLP Services emphasized from the get go that the Software Licensing and Protection Services is a distinct set of products from the internal Software Protection Platform anti-piracy technologies integrated into Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008, formerly code-named Longhorn.

"The Code Protector SDK is a software development toolkit with an intuitive user interface, application programming interfaces (APIs) and code samples. The Software Licensing and Protection Server, in standard and enterprise editions, allow the ISV to host their own servers, create licenses for their products and offer them in very flexible scenarios, either directly or through partners. SLP Services enables simple creation of machine-based licenses, time-based licenses for subscription models and trials, user-based licenses for roaming, as well as feature-based licenses - supporting a wide range of business models. The SLP Online Service allows partners to do all of their license management without hosting their own servers," Lindeman explained.

All the products under the Software Licensing and Protection Services umbrella will be made available in November 2007 and will enable developers to protect their software against piracy, hacking, and reverse engineering. But ultimately, the SLP services will give ISV complete control over what customers can and cannot do with the software. In this context, the suite of anti-piracy services will ensure that users are permitted to do only the actions stipulated in the license and nothing else.

"As far as licensing enforcement, sometimes we call it "positive control," which means that what you intend your end users to do is all they can do, and the SVM handles this protection and management as well. So there is a client-side license enforcement process that makes it down to the end user, and then the licensing component of the code protection software looks at that license and controls the application in whatever way the license states. It basically enforces the license's rules," Lindeman added.