Approach towards Software license compliance
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by: danieljoobi
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Word Count: 543
Date: Mon, 10 Oct 2011 Time: 4:02 AM
Software license compliance practice should be a continuous one and not event-driven as is seen these days with quite a many medium and large sized enterprises. For most organizations, the general trend is to sit up and take notice of their software licenses only after some unfortunate event takes place. A typical event could be an external software audit issued by the software vendor or organizations like the BSA who enforce the practice of software license compliance on organizations. In such situations, usually organizations rely on manual counting or at the most creating an excel worksheet to record the total number of installations and compare them with the license agreements.
However, organizations must understand that this kind of approach is wrong and inefficient in getting IT compliant by the regulatory standards. Rather than taking events like an external audit as an emergency situation, enterprises must focus on incorporating the practice of software license compliance in their day to day activities. More so, because software inventory checks done in a hassle are prone to errors which again results in stringent audits and many a times heavy penalties or filed litigations. As per recent survey reports, it has been concluded that there is a 40% rise in the number of external software audits that organizations are subjected to. Reason cited being a gradual decline in the revenues from software sales, as a result of which vendors are trying to impose complex licensing terms and conditions to create trap holes for enterprises and generate money in the form of fines and penalties.
In order to ensure full compliance and avert legal tangles, it is best to enforce stringent polices for software license compliance. Organizations which incorporate new technologies that help in practicing SAM (Software Asset Management) stay at an advantageous position because SAM ultimately takes into account the license compliance strategy of an organization. Software like Lepide Software Asset Management (LSAM) enables enterprises to become compliant as well as manage their assets so as to benefit in every aspect. With a well planned software compliance policy in place, enterprises not only protect themselves from the risks associated with external software audits but also benefit in many other ways listed below:
Reduces software costs: The problem of unused or redundant licenses straightaway affects a company’s expenditure. With proper licensing policies, searching unused licenses and re-allocating them to the software becomes easier and drastically reduces costs. Moreover, problem of over-licensing is also eliminated.
Increased IT productivity: Since practicing software license compliance helps enterprises in automatic maintenance of a software inventory record, at the time of internal audits it becomes easier for executives to map the installed software with the available licenses thus improving the overall productivity.
Better vendor negotiations: During the time of license procurement or contract renewal, organizations benefit from a well structure license compliance process. This is because, organizations are able to understand their own licensing needs and making valid deals with the vendors
Streamlined IT processes: An on-going software license compliance practice helps organizations to automate IT processes and address the issues at the earliest. As a result collaboration among IT departments improves.
Therefore, we see that following software license compliance as a continuous process helps proves to be more effective in the long run.
About the Author
The author of this article is senior technical analyst with more than a decade of experience with specialization in IT license management and governance policies. This article escalates the importance of software licensing compliance and the use of tools like HIPAA compliance software for large enterprises.
