Software Asset Management (SAM) Blog

Over the past 5 years revenues for all technology companies in mature markets such as the UK has slowed. This is mostly due to cuts in IT investment within organsisations and the view that current technology is “good enough”.

So as software vendors traditional sources of revenue dried up, software vendors have been looked for new areas to generate revenues. One approach is to pursue organisations they believe to be out of compliance.

So how do software vendors target organisations?

They compare their records of licence sales against public information including the published number of employees organisations have. Then look for discrepancies between these numbers.

They would then either conduct audits themselves or through audit Partners. A licence reconcilliation report will be generated showing software that is installed against licences that the organisation has entitlement to use. Any non-compliance will be expected to be addressed with immediate effect.

Generally organisations do not have an understanding of their software entitlement or the software that is in use in their organisation and without this knowledge there will always be not only a risk of non-compliance but a risk of overspending on software.

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The Telegraph Media Group has won the Techworld Award for ‘Governance Project of the Year’ following a SAM and ITAM project which identified more than £100,000 in potential savings. By using Centennial Discovery to find and track all asset on the network, the national publisher found many software titles that were not in current use - thus preventing new purchases being made where existing licenses already existed.

Speaking about the project, Lorrie Dannecker commented: “In addition to the hard facts about what software is installed and where, we have been able to look into how frequently individual applications are used and when they were last opened,” said Dannecker. “In many instances there were applications that had not been used for months or even years. We have been able to remove these from the workstations and cancel licences that previously would have been automatically renewed.”

Maxwell Cooter, Techworld’s Editor, said that the project had been selected as the winner as it combined intelligent use of technology with a clear business case and return on investment.

ISO/IEC 19770-1 SAM: Are You Ready?

On 18 June 2007 International Standards Authority (ISO) published a self assesment engine for ISO/IEC 19770-1 standard for Software Asset Management titled: “ISO/IEC 19770- SAM: Are You Ready”

This tool was developend in conjunction with Investors in Software (IiS) who were responsible for developing the software application and the guidance contained in the package

This product is available initially only on CD. It is available from the itSMF on behalf of IiS.It is also available from ISO, national standards bodies, and other authorized resellers for ISO and ISO/IEC standards. The cost from the itSMF is £79 for the individual-use version; and £209 for the organisational-use version. A downloadable version will be available in the near future.

Links:

https://www.itsmf.com/secure/bookstore/productlist.asp?CID=6

http://www.iso.org/iso/en/prods-services/otherpubs/Otherprods.PublicationList?
CLASSIFICATION=OTHERPRODS#097003

The Business Software Alliance (BSA) has announced that an unnamed British company has paid a record £250,000 ($0.5 million) fine for running unlicensed software from vendors included Adobe, Autodesk and Microsoft.

The fine is the result of an investigation by the BSA dating back to October 2006.

While the fine itself is the highest of its type, what the report does not mention is the additional financial impact suffered by the organization purchasing all the missing licenses - the fine was exactly that, a penalty for non-compliance and not a bill for rectifying the license shortfall.

In recent months, the BSA has strengthened its messaging around the benefits of Software Asset Management and how best practices can help organizations avoid costly compliance fines.