Save The Dongle

Why The Dongle?

For some people it may be unimaginable that we want to keep the dongle. And in fact if you aren’t utilising the dongle in the way many people do then it does seem like a hinderance.

One of the unique aspects of Avid’s licensing is that you can install Media Composer (or it’s related editing applications) on as many computers as you want, as your ability to use that software is (or was until 3.5) tied to the dongle. What this means in practice is that an editor may have the software installed on multiple computers, perhaps a Mac Pro, HP workstation and a laptop. By simply pluggin in the dongle they can use whichever is best suited.

Avid’s new Software Activation system does recognise this method of working by their customers and allows for fairly simply moving the activation from one system to another, but for those of us who rely on the ease of switching a dongle from machine to machine this system still seems orders of magnitude better.

However we recognise that for many users that flexability isn’t needed and therefore the dongle is just something to take up  a USB port, constantly at risk of damage, loss or theft. For those people clearly software activation is an easier and more sensible proposition.

To meet the needs of both groups we’d like to see essentially the 3.5 option remain, where upon installtion a user can decide whether a license should be managed by software activation, or with a dongle. Or better still for a dongle that can simply override the software activation.

The Alternatives

If we’re asking Avid to reconsider a decision that they obviously feel they have good reason to make, we should at least offer alternative ideas or thoughts. Here’s mine…

Retain the software activation and make the dongle an optional alternative which would integrate with and bypass the software activation. Essentially users who wish to have the flexability offered by a dongle can purchase a dongle (existing users with a dongle should be allowed to repurpose theirs) for a reasonable price that can be setup as an alternative for the dongle. Essentially when you install a new system you’d have to activate it once still, but after that it would operate in ‘dongle mode’ meaning that it now requires an approved dongle to operate.

Any other ideas? Post em below…