Wohlers Associates uses Vitrium Security to protect the Wohlers Report,  restricting printing and sharing, through a single-user license sales model

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"The people at Vitrium have gone the extra mile to help us out, from the very beginning. We highly recommend Vitrium without reservation.”
-Terry Wohlers, Principal Consultant & President

Company Overview

Wohlers Associates, Inc. is an independent consulting firm based in Fort Collins, Colorado. Founded over thirty years ago, the company provides technical and strategic consulting on the new developments and trends in rapid product development, additive manufacturing, and 3D printing. Wohlers Associates’ past work has involved 260 client organizations in 26 countries around the world. The company has provided advice to 180 additional companies in the investment community.

Key Challenges

Wohlers Associates publishes and distributes the Wohlers Report, an annual publication that provides a global review and analysis of additive manufacturing and 3D printing. Written for product development and manufacturing professionals, the report delivers invaluable information to companies, service providers, startups, researchers, educators, analysts, and investors in the manufacturing sector. Often referred to as the bible on 3D printing, the Wohlers Report has served as the undisputed industry-leading report on the subject for 23 consecutive years.

Publishing such a valuable report, Wohlers Associates needed a Content Security and DRM solution to protect its investment in developing the report. The company was delivering the report to paying customers as a PDF file via email, using simple password protection from Adobe Acrobat. “In early 2016, it was discovered that someone had illegally unlocked the protection on the report and made it available for $1 at a very popular website in China,” says Terry Wohlers, Principal Consultant and President at Wohlers Associates, “I knew right away that stronger content protection was necessary to protect our business.”

“It was discovered that someone had illegally unlocked the protection on our report and made it available for $1 at a very popular website in China.”
-Terry Wohlers, Principal Consultant & President

The Solution

“Our goals were to secure our content while maintaining ease of viewing for our customers,” says Mr. Wohlers. “As we moved to selling a digital version of the Wohlers Report, we needed to restrict sharing through a single-user license sales model, and prevent the report from being printed.” Mr. Wohlers, along with IT expert Dan Silva and order processing specialist Julie Whitney, set out to find a solution that did all this, while being cost effective and easy to use. In Vitrium Security they found the right solution for their company.

After researching Content Security and DRM solutions, Mr. Silva recommended Vitrium to the Wohlers team as an affordable solution that delivered on the company’s goal to protect the Wohlers Report with minimum disruption to their content delivery process. “We needed a way to deliver our report to customers as a PDF or a secure web link through a browser,” continues Mr. Wohlers. “We needed protection to travel with the report wherever it went with secure offline access, and Vitrium did it at the right price,” summarizes Mr. Wohlers.

“As we moved to selling a digital version of the Wohlers Report, we needed to restrict sharing through a single-user license sales model, and prevent the report from being printed.”
-Terry Wohlers, Principal Consultant & President

The Results

Vitrium Security delivers the tools to protect the Wohlers Report with minimal effort by administrators and customers. “Vitrium allows us to create a username and password for each customer, which greatly speeds up our delivery process,” says Mr. Wohlers, “and the online web viewer is an easy way for customers to view the report, whether it's on their computer, tablet, or phone.” Vitrium not only delivered on the software needs of Wohlers Associates, but also exceeded expectations on the level of service provided. “The people at Vitrium have gone the extra mile to help us out, from the very beginning. Service and access to its employees, even top management, are very important to us and played a big role in our selection,” continues Mr. Wohlers.

“We were uncertain when going from a standard PDF to a more sophisticated digital rights management approach because we did not want to add any obstacles to the delivery of our content,” concludes Mr. Wohlers, “but with Vitrium Security, rather than sending large PDFs that some email servers reject, we are now sending a link that provides simple, protected access to our content. If any issues arise, the people at Vitrium are quick to help us resolve them. We highly recommend Vitrium without reservation.”