Software Asset Management (SAM) Discussion

An unnamed UK company has agreed to pay a record fine of £250,000  for running unlicensed software.

The company (which operates in the infrastructure and public services sector) was running unlicensed copies of Adobe, Autodesk, and Microsoft software on hundreds of PCs across several UK locations.

The BSA is highly active and is said to be investigating a number of large UK companies who are believe to be running un-licensed Software.

The BSA is not the only organsiation actively auditing customers. A recent Gartner study showed that major software vendors such as Adobe, IBM, BEA Systems, Microsoft, Oracle and Attachmate are aggressively auditing customers where they believe there is unlicensed copies of their software in use.

Companies should be protecting themselves against such activity but how?

By implementing good Software Asset Management processes to adequately manage an organisation’s software assets. This will involve technology, people and processes.

Deploy an autodiscovery/inventory such as Centennial Discovery so the organisation has an understanding of what assets are deployed across the organisation. Combine this with licence management technology such as Centennial License Manager 2.0 which will launch September 2007 and the organisation will be on the road to gaining control of their software assets.

Implement good SAM processes such as those recommended in ITIL guide to Software Asset mangement. http://www.best-management-practice.com/ or in the ISO/IEC 19770-1 Standard for Software Asset Management and the organisation should avoid the risk of a vendor audit and associated.

If an audit is requested by a vendor these processes should make it a relatively straightforward process as it will be easy to demonstrate what the compliance position is and the organisation will be on the front foot of any negotiations with vendors.

In association with the International Business Software Managers Association (IBSMA), Centennial is pleased to present a new document investigating the ISO 19770-1 SAM standard and the key requirements organization’s need to meet.

The document includes helpful insights into the history of the SAM standard as well as thoughts on its current and future adoption by organizations in the piublic and private sectors.

You can download the new document here.

The driving force behind the publication of ISO/IEC 19770-1 standard for Software Asset Management was a UK non-profit body called Investors in Software (IiS)

Their website can be found at http://www.investorsinsoftware.com/

Their work did not stop when the ISO 19770-1 was published. They have been working on a SAM Self-Assessment Engine to help IT professionals implement SAM techniques and help prepare for certification against ISO/IEC 19770-1.

The Self Assessment Engine has been in beta for some time but is now ready to launch.

The ISO Central Secretariat have agree to distribute the Self Assessment Engine and it will be titled “ISO/IEC 19770-1 Software Asset Management: Are You ready?” which will be available in both CD-ROM and in downloadable format.

IiS are also heavily involved in the development of the ISO/IEC 19770-2 SAM Tag standard details of which can be found on their website.

Another organisation who are invovled with ISO/IEC 19770 is the International Business Software Managers Association.

 They have published a number of excellent publications explaining ISO/IEC 19770-1 and 19770-2. These can be found at:

http://www.ecpmedia.com/index.html