Our featured Express Software Manager report this month is the “Suite Application” report.  At its highest level, this report helps you determine what components of suite products are actually being utilized, so you can ensure your software budget is being wisely spent.

Here’s a real-life example of how this information can be useful.  Let’s say that your company has 1000 employees, each of whom has a license for Microsoft Office 2007 Professional Plus.  The Professional Plus version of the 2007 Office suite is comprised of eight individual components.  We know that most people take advantage of Outlook, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.  But what about the other four components:  Access, Publisher, InfoPath, and Office Communicator?  (Based on what we hear from customers, a majority of most organization’s users don’t use any of these components – and come on, do you know anyone who uses Communicator?) 

Now, let’s assume that half of your users licensed for 2007 Professional Plus are not using Access, Publisher, InfoPath, and Communicator–meaning they could get by just fine with the Standard edition.  The delta between the MSRP of the Professional Plus and Standard editions of Office is around $100, which means you could save something to the tune of $50,000 by renegotiating your software contract.  Not a trivial amount when your boss is telling you there’s no budget for the Windows OS upgrade.

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When you think about reporting found within Express Software Manager, you probably think of IT asset inventory reports relating to hardware and software installations, application usage, and purchasing information. Did you know the Express Reports Console also contains reports that shows important administrative details about the machines you’re managing using Express Software Manager? For example:

• Which machines are using an Express Client license?
• Which machines don’t have the Express Client installed?
• Which machines are connected via terminal server?
• Which machines haven’t been inventoried recently?
• Which machines haven’t checked in recently?
• Which Express Clients haven’t been upgraded to the current version?

All these questions, and many more, can be answered using the “Express Client Status” report, found within “Administrative Tools” section of the reporting console.

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The following article was authored by Grant Brierley, Express Metrix’s VP of EMEA Sales & Marketing, for GovToday, the UK’s premier online resource for the public sector.  The column relates to the UK National Health System’s (NHS) recent decision to abandon its massive Microsoft Enterprise License Agreement in favor of decentralized purchasing among individual agencies.  Mr. Brierley outlines five practical steps for the NHS to optimize its license agreements, and will be delivering a master class on this topic jointly with FAST Ltd at an NHS event on 15 February in Westminster.  We believe his advice can be applied to any organization looking to “right-size” its volume software purchases and implement an effective software asset management program.  Enjoy!

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Friday, January 28, 2011 * 10:00 AM (Pacific) / 1:00 PM (Eastern)

Ever wondered why on earth software identification is so difficult? What’s the most accurate method for identifying apps: registry analysis, file header analysis, or software catalogs? When will software tagging truly become a reality?

Join us for a special webinar this Friday that will cover everything you need to know about software identification and how it relates to your software license management efforts.  This is a repeat of the presentation I delievered at the IAITAM Annual Conference back in October.

Here are a few of the topics the webinar will cover: (more…)

I’m pretty sure everyone can agree that tracking software usage is an important element of any software asset management program.   However, end-user organizations considering software metering solutions are often unaware of the full scope of benefits that can be delivered by tracking application usage.  In addition, few realize that vendors tackle software metering in a variety of ways that may or may not match their specific environments and/or goals.

Join Jeff Kelsey, Express Metrix’s VP of Products, on Tuesday December 8 at 11am (Pacific) / 2pm (Eastern) for a special webinar discussing the ins and outs of application metering. 

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