Software Asset Management (SAM) Blog

The latest research from Gartner (Data Center Polling Illustrates IT Asset Management as an Enabler, 8 March 2010) states that software audits continued to increase in volume through 2009. Around 60 percent of respondents in Deceber 2009 stated that they had been subject to at least one software audit in the previous 12 months. The same question posed at the end of 2008 elicited a 38 percent positive response, showing the scale of the increase in audits.

Further, Gartner states that around 20 percent of all ITAM calls it takes are now concerned with software audits, compared with around 5 - 8 percent historically.

2009 saw a distinct increase in the volume of license audits by software vendors, says Forrester Research.

Not only was the overall volume of audits increased, but the causes of disputes were also wider ranging than ever before, with virtualization and multiplexing key issues.

In Forrester’s new report ‘Surviving a Software Audit‘, Principal Analyst, Duncan Jones, claims that “…many vendors’ audit teams seemed to want to meet their revenue targets by exploiting technicalities and loopholes.”

And while it is acknowledged that software vendors have every legitimate right to audit for license compliance, the tactics of some vendors are perceived as underhand - akin to a traffic cop hiding in the bushes with a radar gun.

Forrester has some good advice for those charged with maintaining an organization’s compliance: Don’t avoid the audit, co-operate with the vendor [we’d go further and suggest pre-empting the audit with effective Discovery and License Management to truly put yourself in the driving seat] and demonstrate good SAM practices to persuade the vendor that you’re not a good ‘revenue opportunity’.

According to new figures just released by Pierre Audoin Consultants (PAC) and TechMarketView, corporate software spend in the UK is down 3.9 percent in the UK. Not great news for software vendors.

But it’s also potentially small-fry against the value of software investments that are already being wasted each year.

According to research undertaken by FrontRange last year, the average organization in the UK actually over-spends on the software by as much as 20 percent annually. This is a symptom of poor control - with many organizations routinely purchasing shelfware or duplicate licenses, individuals failing to purchase through the most effective channels (e.g. buying one-off boxed products when volume licensing agreements are already in place), and even renewing maintenance on software that is no longer in use.

All of these instances of poor management (and there are many more besides), contribute to a general over-spend that no organization can afford. But by understanding what software is on the network, the organization’s current licensing position and exercising tighter controls on procurement and deployment - the good news is that a significant portion of the current IT spend can be reduced with no detrimental effect on IT operations.

So while the reported 3.9 percent drop in software spend isn’t great news for the industry, the fact is that end user organizations that invest in better software management practices can actually save far more. And that, in turn, means they can afford to acquire the software they really need.

Gartner has identified Software Asset Management (SAM) as critical to helping IT organizations survive the current economic troubles. Alongside VOIP, virtualization, security managed services and data center hosting, the analyst firm highlighed SAM as critical to getting IT leaders to think more like CFOs, looking to address areas of inefficiency as well as investing in new technologies to drive savings.

It certainly seems that SAM fits the bill: aiding organizations to realize savings through better use of existing assets, preventing uneccessary spending on duplicate software, reducing the cost of support and maintenance agreements and avoiding the risk of costly compliance fines.

But to be truly effective, SAM requires IT and finance teams to collaborate closely. And this will be the subject of a more ind-depth post shortly.