Imagine your company were forced to pony up $3.3 million in damages for software license infringement.  Unbelievable though it may seem, this was the actual amount of the judgment in a 2007 piracy lawsuit against an unnamed international media firm.  The ruling broke the record for the largest copyright infringement penalty in the BSA’s history–a record that towered far above all others for over three years.

Now, imagine the judgment against your company were for $1.3 BILLION (equivalent to the entire GDP of Belize!).  Inconceivable?  Absolutely–up until last week, when SAP assumed the role of the world’s most ignominious software pirate after being convicted of copyright infringement by a California jury.

The high-profile case involved charges stemming from SAP’s acquisition of TomorrowNow, a company that provided services and support to customers of PeopleSoft and JD Edwards, both of which were acquired by Oracle in 2005.  TomorrowNow, under new ownership of SAP, was accused by Oracle of routinely (and illegally) downloading Oracle software outside the scope of patches and bug fixes to which TomorrowNow’s existing customers were contractually entitled. Initially, Oracle filed ten charges against SAP, among them copyright infringement, unlawful computer access, unfair competition, and breach of contract. 

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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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This is the second of two posts related to the challenges SMBs often encounter finding asset management software that matches their functional requirements, resource limitations, and budgets.  You can read the first post in the series here.

In this post I’ll explore five functional areas where SMBs have been underserved both by large, enterprise-oriented suites, as well as by the more basic, lower-cost computer inventory products.

1) License management capabilities

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After years of “ho-hum” traditional press releases, research studies, and local radio campaigns, it looks like the BSA has hired fresh blood to breathe some life into its image.  Using YouTube, the BSA is engaging in some rather clever viral marketing in what appears to be an attempt to not only promote but also to modernize its message.  The “Faces of Internet Piracy” campaign evidently launched over a year ago, with videos featuring real-life “bad guys” (software counterfeiters and consumer cheats) and “good guys” (corporate do-gooders who beat back the tide of piracy and spread the virtues of properly licensed software).  Some of the YouTube shorts (like this one) reflect an edgy, reality-TV-inspired production style, which the BSA likely hopes is more apt to reach one of its primary targets: tech-savvy youth.

I do find it interesting that despite the fact that many of the BSA’s efforts are devoted to auditing and meting out punishment to businesses guilty of using unlicensed software, it doesn’t seem like the BSA is allocating proportional resources to educating the business community using similar, culturally relevant mediums. Of the $51 billion of lost ISV and retailer revenues the BSA claims piracy has resulted in, how much of it stems from illegal software use within companies?  It’s always struck me as a bit odd that the annual studies that yield these figures have never made the important distinction between consumer piracy and corporate piracy.  Then again, from the BSA’s perspective, it probably doesn’t hurt for end-users to draw their own conclusions, no matter which category they fall into.

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Finding the right software license management technology is hard enough. It’s even more challenging if your network environment includes servers running Citrix or Windows Terminal Server (WTS), as precious few tools provide usage statistics or management capabilities for applications delivered through these platforms.

To manage software in a Citrix or WTS environment, you need technology that collects software usage data not only at the server level, but also at the end-user and machine level.  And in order to effectively manage license compliance, you’ll want to explore capabilities that allow you to control in an automated fashion which end users and/or machines can run those licensed applications.

There are three software license types you need to consider in Citrix or WTS environments, each of which requires a different approach to license management. (more…)