Software Asset Management (SAM) Discussion

Centennial Software has announced a free one-hour license management webinar designed to help organizations understand the critical aspects of successful software compliance and SAM. The event will look at initial planning, through to the first audit and finally matching up installed applications against recorded licenses.

Find our more about the event here.

An unnamed media firm has agreed to pay the Business Software Alliance (BSA) a record £1.7 million ($3.5m / €2.5m) for significant shortfalls in its software licensing.   The firm was reportedly investigated by the BSA at the request of software vendors including Adobe, Autodesk, Avid and Microsoft.

The BSA then worked with police to raid the company and seize assets.

Together with the £250,000 fine levied against a UK organization earlier in the year, it appears that vendors and the BSA are becoming more aggressive in their compliance activities - although it is important to acknowledge the efforts made by firms like Microsoft, which aim to educate their customers not only to the need to be fully compliant but also the business benefits of adopting software management best practices.

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.