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Software AG

Software AG is now a Software GmbH brand whose remaining products, mainly Adabas & Natural and ARIS, are licensed under customer-specific commercial agreements plus public legal notices, licence files that bind mainframe products to CPU ID, LPAR and MSU capacity, and free limited-use and evaluation licences.

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Overview articleSoftware AG licensingSoftware AG is now a Software GmbH brand whose remaining products, mainly Adabas & Natural and ARIS, are licensed under customer-specific commercial agreements plus public legal notices, licence files that bind mainframe products to CPU ID, LPAR and MSU capacity, and free limited-use and evaluation licences.Cited · Edited 2026-10-07 · 9 references

Guides

Software AG mainframe product licensingCited · Edited 2026-10-07Software AG legal notices and licence termsCited · Edited 2026-10-07Software AG portfolio changes, webMethods and ARISCited · Edited 2026-10-07

Licensing Data

From the Software AG catalog: how usage is counted, the rules that apply, the programs licences are bought through and the SKUs. Backed by 40 verbatim excerpts from 12 Software AG documents.

Products

All 14 Products

Database Software 5

Adabas, Adabas add-ons, Entire Net-Work, Entire System Server, Software GmbH Docker images (Adabas Community Edition and other images)

Enterprise Architecture Tools 5

ARIS, ARIS Architect, ARIS Cloud Enterprise (Dedicated), ARIS Designer, ARIS Public Cloud

Application Development Software 2

Com-plete, Natural

Data Integration Tools 2

EntireX, Mainframe middleware and system products

Product History

All acquisitions
  1. Silver Lake acquired Software AGClosed 2023 · EUR 32.00 per share in cash under the offer document (as published)

    Silver Lake made a voluntary public tender offer for Software AG, intending to delist it, and later divested or separated its main businesses.

    Legacy productBecame
    webMethods and StreamSetsDivested IBM · Sold to IBM; the sale closed in July 2024
    TrendMinerDivested Divested business · Divested in July 2024 per Software GmbH
    AlfabetDivested Divested business · Sale closed by January 2025 per Software GmbH
    CumulocityDivested Divested business · Sale closed by January 2025 per Software GmbH
    Licensing impact
    • Silver Lake's offer document announcement of 17 May 2023 said it would pay EUR 32.00 per share, had already secured 30.1 percent of Software AG, and intended to delist Software AG as soon as practically possible.[1]
    • Silver Lake said Software AG faced a multi-year transition from traditional licensing to software-as-a-service that it considered best carried out in a private setting.[1]
    • On 7 January 2025 Software GmbH, the holding entity of the Software AG group, said it had divested webMethods, StreamSets and TrendMiner in July 2024 and had closed the sales of Alfabet and Cumulocity, and that ARIS and Adabas & Natural would operate as standalone businesses.[2]
    Sources and full product history

Litigation

All cases
  1. Software AG v. Consist Software Solutions, Inc.US District Court for the Southern District of New York; US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit · 2009
    Judgment
    Lessons learned
    • A distribution or resale agreement that has both a no-fault notice clause and a for-cause clause should say expressly how they interact; the courts will not read one clause so that it makes another meaningless.
    • Courts are reluctant to find a perpetual agreement without a clear provision, and unexpressed beliefs of one party do not count as evidence of mutual intent.
    • Conduct after a termination notice, such as telling customers when exclusivity will end, can be treated as strong evidence of how the party understood the contract.
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