Software configuration based on entitlement records

An authorizing customer managed software installation data processing system comprising:

• a data store of inventory records, maintenance records and entitlement records for different installations of an application for different customers on different computing platforms;
• an e-configurator comprising program code enabled to provide a configuration of the computing platforms for a specified one of the customers;
• and,
• a base retriever coupled to the e-configurator and the data store, the base retriever comprising program code enabled to determine by reference to the inventory records, the maintenance records and the entitlement records, each of a version of an installed application in an existing one of the computing platforms based upon a serial number of the installed application, and to validate the version of the installed application in comparison to a configuration provided by the e-configurator in authorizing a transfer of the installed application to a different one of the computing platforms.