Auditing software is about ROI, not fear

More and more companies are keeping close tabs on the software and software licences in their possession but not normally because they are afraid of being called to account by policing bodies such as the BSA and FAST.

Commenting on the release of research into software asset management (SAM) in the UK, Shaun Fröhlich, chairman of Teksys, the services consultancy that commissioned the study, said: "In reality, few companies implement SAM because of fear. They do it because they have a compelling business case with demonstrable ROI."

Although SAM tools were available as long as 10 years or so ago - Dr Solomons used to bundle an audit tool in the mid-1990s, for example - even with the millennium seeing widespread upgrades, many user organisations lost track of what they use and what they have paid for.

The study, in association with analysts RedMonk, found 51 per cent of organisations don't believe they have effective SAM tools in-house, while 18 per cent admit to having none at all.

When asked if they know how much software they have in their organisation, only two-fifths said yes with any confidence and only a fifth said yes for certain.

Teksys' Fröhlich added that one reason for confusion comes when software vendors sell, say, 750 licences for the price of 500 into an organisation, trying to boost their share of a market. "Licensing is not imprecise but it can seem that way," he said.

Teksys and others are increasingly saying that close control of software assets is a way to extract the most value from investments.

A guide to SAM by IT Infrastructure Library is available at www.teksys.co.uk.