Software Asset Management (SAM) Blog

With the vast majority of commercial organizations still shunning any widescale roll-out of Windows Vista, Microsoft will be hoping for better things from Windows 7. The latest and greatest operating system will now officially ship on October 22 2009, according to multiple news reports.

Windows 7 will come in five different editions including Starter, Home Premium, Professional, Enterprise and Ultimate.

Following its claim that businesses in London UK use as much as £149 million (US $244.3m) worth of unlicensed software, the Business Software Alliance (BSA) has announced that it is launching a new campaign aimed at the British capital. This follows similar campaigns in other parts of the UK.

The two-month campaign will encourage London businesses to audit their own software use to determine whether they are safely within legal boundaries.

According to London’s ‘Metro’ newspaper, this news comes as the BSA has reached a £10,000 settlement with a London-based architects firm which was found to have illegal software on its network.

Meanwhile, in the USA, the BSA has announced a $205,000 settlement with a Nevada-based civil engineering company which was found to be using illegal copies of Autodesk software. According to news reports, the company first refused to co-operate with the BSA on a software audit, which led to the licensing watchdog filing a lawsuit in the Californian courts.