Deactivate Zarqon Active License Control

Today, we tackle yet another commercial licensing system for Flash applications by reviewing the Zarqon Active License Control System from Futurescale.

While the name Zarqon may be unfamiliar to most developers, anyone who has spent some time in the field of RIA development should recognize the name Futurescale. This is the company that gave us the wildly popular and incredibly powerful PureMVC framework. PureMVC is a highly mature product and is used by developers from all over the world. The original codebase has been ported to many languages, including AS2, AS3, Java, Javascript, HaXe, C#, Coldfusion, and PHP.

The Zarqon Active License System is different from the other systems that we have reviewed by the fact that the server components (nothing more than a collection of encrypted license files) are hosted on your own Amazon S3 account. There is no server logic involved in the licensing system. The advantage is that you have complete control over your data servers and that you only have to pay Futurescale a one-time fee to purchase the licensing system.

It should be pointed out that the Zarqon licensing system is not dependent on the PureMVC framework. Yet given the fact that it is developed by the same folks at Futurescale, can we expect the same performance and reliability from Zarqon as we do from PureMVC?

Taking Adobe InMarket Out

Adobe InMarket is a brand new Adobe AIR application distribution and monetization service from Adobe. Developers can publish and manage their applications in multiple app stores through the InMarket Portal for free (for now). Adobe takes care of credit card processing, hosting, and marketing, in exchange for 30% of the sales revenue.

By far coolest aspect of Adobe InMarket is its shockingly simple licensing API. The integration process is as simple as downloading the licensing.swc and adding five lines of code into your application.

Here is an example from the InMarket documentation: