If you Google the term “software vendor audit,” you’ll find no shortage of information on the topic, particularly related to how to avoid and/or survive them. Frankly, though I try to stay on top of all the current research and frequently talk to customers who provide good anecdotal insight, I’ve seen very little recent material that sheds any new light on the matter.  But I confess I was taken aback by some of the information revealed in Forrester’s software licensing report, released January 4^th. 

First, Forrester reports a year-over-year increase in software audit activity during 2009.  This comes as no surprise; as software sales slumped during the economic downturn, vendors sought new ways to bolster their revenue streams; one way of doing so is to more aggressively audit their customers and force them to correct their license deficits.

What did surprise me, however, were some of the anecdotes Forrester cited in which vendors required customers to pony up, apparently in a single-minded attempt to extract extra revenue. According to Forrester, “In addition to spotting genuine under-licensing, many vendors’ audit teams seemed to want to meet their revenue targets by exploiting technicalities and loopholes.”

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