Asure Software
Asure Software (Nasdaq: ASUR) provides cloud payroll and HR software for small and mid-sized businesses from Austin. Founded in 1985 as Forgent Networks, it once extracted $110M+ from the tech industry by enforcing a JPEG patent before reinventing itself.
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- Location
- Austin, Texas, United States
- Country
- United States
- Founded
- 1985
- Founded as
- Forgent Networks
- Headquarters
- Austin, Texas
- Ticker
- Nasdaq: ASUR
- Business
- Cloud-based human capital management — payroll, payroll tax, time and attendance, HR — for small and mid-sized U.S. employers
- JPEG patent royalties collected
- More than $110 million from over 60 companies (2002–2006)
- FY2025 revenue
- $140.5 million, up 17% year over year
- Reportable segments
- One — Human Capital Management (HCM)
Overview
Asure Software, Inc. (Nasdaq: ASUR) is an Austin, Texas-based provider of cloud human capital management software — payroll processing, payroll tax compliance, time and attendance, and HR services — aimed at small and mid-sized U.S. employers (Umbrex). For full-year 2025 it reported revenue of $140.5 million, up 17%, with adjusted EBITDA of $32 million (TradingView; YCharts). What makes Asure unusual is its past life: founded in 1985 as Forgent Networks, it spent the mid-2000s as one of the tech industry’s most notorious patent enforcers, extracting more than $110 million in JPEG royalties before reinventing itself as a payroll company (Umbrex; BetaNews).
The patent-troll years
Forgent’s patent campaign began with a 1997 acquisition: the dormant Compression Labs, which had filed U.S. Patent 4,698,672 — covering compression techniques at the heart of the JPEG image format — in October 1986 (The Register). In June 2002, Forgent announced it held the “sole and exclusive right” to license the patent’s claims, and persuaded Sony to pay $15 million for a license — news that alarmed the industry so deeply that the ISO threatened to withdraw its standards blessing from JPEG, which it can only endorse royalty-free (The Register).
Undeterred, Forgent claimed some $90 million in royalties and, in April 2004, sued 30 companies that had rejected its terms — a defendant list spanning Japanese electronics giants (JVC, Panasonic, Ricoh), camera makers (Fuji, Agfa, Kodak), PC companies (IBM, Dell, Apple, HP, Toshiba, Gateway) and software firms including Adobe and Macromedia (The Register). The campaign’s end came through the Public Patent Foundation, which persuaded the U.S. Patent Office to reject the patent on prior-art grounds; Forgent then settled its remaining cases for a reported $8 million — far short of the $1 billion it had once hoped for (BetaNews). Over the patent’s life, Forgent said, it had “collected in excess of $110M” from more than 60 companies (BetaNews).
Reinvention as a payroll company
Forgent Networks renamed itself Asure Software and reshaped around payroll, tax, time-and-attendance and HR software and services, built out through acquisitions (Umbrex). The strategy, as Umbrex’s profile describes it: anchor the customer relationship on payroll and tax processing — high-frequency, high-consequence workflows with real switching costs — then expand into adjacent modules, competing against giants like ADP and Paychex on SMB relevance and payroll-tax expertise rather than product breadth (Umbrex).
The numbers show a small-cap SaaS business still scaling toward consistent profitability. Q4 2025 brought $39.3 million in revenue (up 28%) and net income of $0.8 million — against a $3.2 million loss a year earlier — while the full year showed $140.5 million in revenue (up 17%) but a $13.1 million net loss, with adjusted EBITDA of $32 million, up from $22.5 million in 2024 (TradingView). Management guided Q1 2026 revenue of $41–43 million and full-year 2026 revenue of $159–162 million at 23–25% adjusted EBITDA margins (TradingView).
What this profile does not claim
- It does not claim the year Forgent Networks became Asure Software — sources disagree (2007 vs. 2009) and neither was verified from a primary record.
- It does not claim the 2019 spin-off of the NetSimplicity division — not verified from a fully-read independent source.
- It does not claim a client count — the “60,000+ SMBs” figure appears only in company-derived directory text.
- It does not claim the FY2025 figures from the SEC filing itself — they are cited via TradingView’s AI-generated summary of the 8-K, corroborated by YCharts’ annual revenue series.
- It does not present Umbrex’s strategic analysis as fact — that profile’s characterizations of Asure’s strategy are analyst interpretation, used here as tier3 background.
Timeline
- 1985
- The company was founded in Austin, Texas, as Forgent Networks.
- 1997
- Forgent acquired Compression Labs, holder of U.S. Patent 4,698,672 covering JPEG-style image compression.
- 2002
- Forgent began enforcing the JPEG patent, announcing exclusive licensing rights; Sony paid $15 million for a license.
- 2004
- Forgent sued 30 companies — including Apple, Adobe, IBM, Dell, HP and Kodak — for refusing its royalty terms.
- 2006
- After the Public Patent Foundation got the patent rejected on prior-art grounds, Forgent settled its final cases, having collected over $110 million from more than 60 companies.
- 2025
- Asure Software reported full-year revenue of $140.5 million, up 17%, with adjusted EBITDA of $32.0 million.
What we could not verify
These claims came up in research and could not be confirmed. They are recorded here rather than published as fact or quietly dropped. If you hold a source that settles one, please tell us.
- The rename year is disputed: Umbrex (read in full) says Forgent Networks became Asure Software in 2009; Wikipedia says September 13, 2007. No year is stated.
- The 2019 spin-off of the NetSimplicity division was not verified from a fully-read independent source and is not stated.
- The 'more than 60,000 SMB clients' figure appears only in company-derived directory text and is not stated.
Sources
5 sources (2 tier 2, 3 tier 3), each opened and read against the claim it supports. Every source is independent of the subject; no first-party material is cited. See the source policy.
Read in full: The Register (2004, Forgent's JPEG enforcement); BetaNews (2006, final settlements and $110M total); Umbrex's Asure Software strategy profile (founding 1985, Forgent rename, SMB payroll strategy); TradingView's summary of Asure's February 26, 2026 8-K (FY2025 results); YCharts (annual revenue series, corroborating $140.54M for 2025). The TradingView piece is disclosed as an AI-generated summary of the SEC filing. No asuresoftware.com material was cited. Wikipedia supplied leads only (rename date, NetSimplicity spin-off).
- Supports: Compression Labs acquisition (1997), '672 patent, June 2002 enforcement announcement, Sony $15M license, $90M royalties claimed, 30-company lawsuit and defendant list Open original source
- Supports: Final settlements (~$8M from ~30 companies), 60+ companies and $110M+ total, PUBPAT invalidation, CEO Richard Snyder quote, NetSimplicity business Open original source
- Supports: Founded 1985 Austin, renamed from Forgent Networks, Nasdaq ASUR, SMB payroll-centered HCM strategy, one HCM segment, competitor set (ADP, Paychex, Paycom, Paylocity) Open original source
- Supports: Q4 2025 ($39.3M revenue +28%, $0.8M net income, $11.4M adjusted EBITDA) and FY2025 ($140.5M revenue +17%, $13.1M net loss, $32.0M adjusted EBITDA); Q1/FY2026 guidance Open original source
- Supports: Annual revenue series corroborating $140.54M for 2025 ($119.79M 2024, $119.08M 2023, $95.83M 2022) Open original source
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