System for collecting computer application usage data of targeted application programs executed on a plurality of client devices

A data collection system comprising:

• a server device storing one or more predetermined identification rules and/or a target application program list including one or more application identifiers;
• and
• a monitoring program downloaded from the server device and executed on each of a plurality of client devices, the monitoring program including:
• a communication module receiving monitoring data including the one or more application identifiers and/or predetermined identification rules from the server device via a computer network;
• an identification module identifying one or more target application programs from a plurality of application programs executed on the client device as matching one of the application identifiers and one of the predetermined identification rules, the predetermined identification rules instructing the monitoring program to monitor a hardware configuration of the client device or a software configuration of the client device;
• and
• a data collection module configured to gathering usage data for the one or more target application programs over a period of time,
• wherein the communication module sends a message back to the server device including the usage data.

A method for gathering data from a plurality of client devices that communicate with a server device via a computer network, the method comprising:

• transmitting a monitoring program from server-device hardware to each of the client devices via the computer network;
• sending monitoring data from the server-device hardware to each of the client devices, the monitoring data including one or more application identifiers, each application identifier corresponding to a target application program;
• and
• receiving, at the server-device hardware, usage data from each of the client devices, the usage data including, for each client device, data reflecting usage of one or more target application programs executed on that client device over a period of time,
• wherein the monitoring program of each client device matches the one or more target application programs to the one or more application identifiers sent to that client device and matches the one or more target application programs based on one or more predetermined identification rules, the predetermined identification rules instructing the monitoring program to monitor a hardware configuration of the client device or a software configuration of the client device, and
• wherein the monitoring program of each client device gathers the usage data of the one or more target application programs on that client device.