Hi
Can anyone tell me if the Indie license is tied to just one machine or is it more useful and versatile like theFoundry's licensing for MODO or even Unity3D?

Indie is locked to a single machine, with some adjustments allowed on occasion:

http://www.sidefx.com/faq/license-management/#how-do-i-return-my-licenses [sidefx.com]

But it might be possible to set up a license server to allow access to one workstation at at time.