In the IT world, we tend to view end users as an occupational hazard—a perilous yet inescapable part of our jobs.  After all, it seems employees will install just about any application they can get their hands on without regard for the potential licensing implications, compatibility issues, security holes, or bandwidth consumption.  But who can blame them?  They’re trying to do their jobs just like we all are, but without the benefit (or curse) of understanding the potential implications of their actions.

What we rarely acknowledge is that the onus is on IT leaders to ensure workers have the information they need—and are held accountable—to make good decisions. It all begins with a clearly articulated and effectively communicated software usage policy that educates end users about the importance of complying with a set of basic standards. Such a policy shouldn’t be long and infused with technical mumbo jumbo.  In fact, the shorter and more straightforward the guidelines, the greater likelihood it will be read, understood, and, most importantly, adhered to.  Not only can a properly developed software usage policy serve to curb risky behavior, but it will also generate goodwill among software publishers when and if they decide to audit you.  If a vendor sees your organization making a conscientious effort to prevent the use of unlicensed software, they’re more likely to treat you as a partner rather than a criminal throughout the software audit process.

The nature of your software usage policy will (and should) depend on your organization’s size, geographic dispersion, and diversity of your software estate, as well as the sophistication of your end users and their technology needs.  If you run the IT department of a small community college, for example, you may wish to prohibit anyone but the IT staff from purchasing or installing software on school-maintained systems. On the other hand, if you work for a technology company with software developers that rely on a variety of commercial and open source solutions to do their jobs, you may need to build more latitude into your usage policy. 

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It’s been a big month for the BSA. Since the beginning of March, the BSA has issued press releases documenting five U.S. settlements totaling close to $525,000 (see the list of losers below).  Over the years, I’ve attempted to ferret out patterns that would suggest certain types of organizations may be at higher risk of a BSA software audit; but as usual, the companies involved span a wide range of sizes, geographies, and industries.  The only common thread I can find among all five (aside from the predominance of Adobe and Microsoft software) is an identical string of text embedded within each press release: “BSA was alerted to the unlicensed software use by a confidential report made on its web site www.nopiracy.com.” (Read my recent blog post elaborating on this trend.)

Though it may seem self-serving for software license management vendors such as ourselves to continue harping on the importance of rigorous asset management practices, it’s clear that the message isn’t getting through to many end-user organizations.  In times fraught with layoffs, salary cuts, and a general sense of workplace malaise it’s not reasonable to assume businesses can successfully curb workers’ very human instinct to inflict reciprocal damage upon their impassive corporate leaders—especially when it can be done with the impunity of whistleblower status and the ability to claim the moral high ground. One thing companies can control, however, is the perpetuation of careless, if not downright reckless, software licensing practices. Business executives can add this to the ever-growing list of good reasons to insist upon the establishment of a thoughtful, comprehensive software asset management strategy. It may just be best way to break the BSA’s winning streak. 

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If you’re an Express Metrix customer planning to upgrade to Windows 7, don’t forget that Express Software Manager has rich hardware and software asset management functionality that will help you plan, budget for, and manage your migration.  One principal area of focus for your pre-migration planning relates to determining which of your existing applications will work with the new OS, and whether your PCs have the capacity to support the upgrade.

From a hardware readiness standpoint, Express Software Manager can inventory all your PCs to determine their CPUs, amount of memory, disk space, and any other hardware attributes that may be important to your migration.  With this information, you can determine whether you need to upgrade your machines, free up space, or replace them altogether.  Here’s just one of Express Software Manager’s hardware inventory reports you may find useful for your upgrade planning (click the thumbnail to enlarge): (more…)

We’re always interested in hearing different ways our customers use Express Software Manager’s computer inventory and software metering reports to make their jobs easier. And believe me, over the last couple of years as budgets have been stretched thin, our end-users have been especially creative in identifying alternative uses.  The one we most commonly hear is to aid in the process of troubleshooting issues on remote PCs. While we certainly don’t claim to be a dedicated help desk tool, customers often provide access to Express Software Manager’s reports to their technical support staff.  Here are a couple of common issues our users are able to identify and tackle using Express Software Manager’s IT asset reporting.

Application Conflicts

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Here’s an interesting article about the relationship between CIOs and CFOs, written by Scott Rosenberg of Miro Consulting.  In the column, Rosenberg asserts that CIOs and CFOs frequently don’t see eye-to-eye not because of competing agendas, but because budget is typically prioritized and allocated based on the profitability of any given division. Ironically, therefore, CIOs often find themselves with inadequate budget to effectively accomplish the initiatives intended to support those very groups.

What does this have to do with software license management?  Well, one issue that compounds the problem is that all too often, organizations are vastly over-licensed on software. However, CFOs, who are preoccupied with opportunities to reduce unnecessary spending, don’t have the expertise or tools to identify such problem areas.  If CIOs can bring this problem to light, they can strengthen their partnership through a shared agenda and free up precious funds by renegotiating license agreements that more closely reflect actual software usage.   

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