We’ve known it has been coming for a while, but now that the Microsoft UK price rise (to bring UK pounds pricing in line with the Euro) is now just six weeks away it seems that little bit more real. And perhaps a little bit more scary. For some organizations in the UK (academic pricing is exempt), this could mean that after July 1st, they are going to pay as much as 33.5 per cent more for their Microsoft licenses. In simple terms, a mix of Microsoft licenses that today would cost an orga...
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In 2006, I worked with a group of software industry specialists to help define an international standard for Software Asset Management (ISO/IEC 19770-1:2006). Based on ITIL best practice, this standard was developed to enable organizations to prove that they were performing Software Asset Management (SAM) to a standard sufficient to satisfy corporate governance requirements and ensure effective support for IT service management overall. Since the launch of this standard, License Dashboard ...
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Software license compliance is very much a two sided equation of usage versus entitlement. The understanding of these two sides has similar levels of complexity and challenges in calculating. Often organizations can be distracted by the perceived capabilities of a license management tool and dramatically underestimate both the level of effort and licensing know-how that is still required to get the most from the chosen solution (let's be clear here, NO license management tool offers 100% a...
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Microsoft recently announced that it will be increasing its UK software prices in June 2012. This increase will have a major negative impact on an organization's IT budget, leading to many having to unexpectedly increase their software expenditure within an already tough financial year.
With careful management of your license entitlements and effective control of your procurement process, however, we believe that if you act now, you can negate this risk and even go on to save significant amount...
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Over the last 10 years, I have project managed some of the largest Software Asset Management (SAM) projects in the UK. During this time, I have found the biggest challenge to most organizations is locating their historical license records. Attempting to gather physical license evidence and find individuals who have worked within the purchasing department with a good recollection of all known license transactions is near impossible. Even those organizations that have kept reasonable records...
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Leading IT research firm, Gartner, has released figures showing a continued increase in the number of end user license audits conducted by leading software vendors, up from 61 percent a year ago to 65 percent today. Put another way, this suggests you only have a 35 percent chance of going a whole 12 months without receiving at least one audit request from a software vendor. Hardly good odds!
According to attendees at recent Gartner events on IT Asset Management, Big Blue was the mos...
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The US-based Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA), which represents vendors in the software and digital content industries, has issued a press release stating that it paid out more 'rewards' to those reporting software and content piracy in the last quarter of 2011 than in the previous two years.
While the US $35,500 paid out to five individuals is far less than the body's stated maximum incentive of $1 million per case, the fact that this is a record payout by the SIIA should...
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American law firm, Scott & Scott LLP, is predicting a significant increase in software audits in 2012. The firm, which defends organizations under scrutiny, believes 2012 will see more audits from both software vendors and trade groups such as the Business Software Alliance (BSA) and the Software Information & Industry Association (SIIA).
Scott & Scott report that they are already seeing an upsurge in the number of client calls regarding pending audits. You can read the press ...
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According to IT analyst firm, Gartner, the average organization now stands around a 55 per cent chance of being audited by at least one software vendor in any given 12-month period. In plain English, that means you are now more likely than not to face at least one software audit in 2012. But what is it that makes you a target for a vendor software audit? Is it just chance, or is there some method behind the vendors’ selection process?
Research conducted earlier this year by gl...
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Spectrami, a leading value added distributor in Dubai has recently signed a distribution agreement with License Dashboard to sell License Dashboard License Manager, License Dashboard Discovery and SAM Portal solutions across the Middle East region.
Anand Choudha, Managing Director of Spectrami, said, "License Dashboard gives a very revolutionary approach to license and entitlement management through self-service and mapping with existing SAM tools and license entitlement. It allows organization...
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