developing and selling/licensing a cms

[heathmont]

hi - we are designed a cms for a graphic design company. basically they want it for a particular client but also want to use it for future clients (as the core backbone of the future sites). This company also wants to use us to develop specific modules for each new client which comes along and integrate their front ends into the cms (which we are now building)

my question is - should we build it and then sell it to them as a once off (the source code), or simply license it to them each time for each client (and then charge for integrate of new modules for each particular client).

i am not sure how to approach this (or if, in fact, i have worded my question properly), but any advice would be much appreciated.

thanks tim.

[jmbishop]

I would license it to them for each site they set it up on. The only problem with this is that you may not be in the loop on each of their clients so they may sneak and install it on every client but only pay you for every 3rd one...

I have a CMS system that I use when building attorney websites and I require them to host with me. I sell it that this allows for upgrades and additional modules to be added more seamlessly.

[choster]

What are the terms of your original agreement?

Broadly speaking, both of you may be better off with some kind of licensing. You benefit from the income and they benefit from the upgrades or fixed you make to the software.

It isn't always easy to define "site," which is why some enterprise vendors license by server or by processor. Of course, these days the definitions of server and processor themselves are murky as well.

[heathmont]

the contract is being written at the moment (hence my questions on this post)

they approached for the development of a cms system for a client of their's.

i said we can build it as per there specifications. Further discussions then focused on the ability to reuse the core functionality of the cms for future clients of their's.

While we are developing some specific modules for their particular client, i am not sure how to approach the re-use of the cms - is it common practise to then license this cms to the graphic design company, for each new client they have, or should we design it once and sell it too them.

I am also worried that if we build it and then put it on their's clients server - can they (the middle coy), then get the code and use it for their own ends? i would obviously prefer to license it to new customer of their's each time.