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Vector develops software for IT Asset, Service and Security Management. In these areas, as just about any area of the industry, vendor hype can create unrealistic expectations, leading to customer disappointment. The mission of this blog is to act as a counter to vendor hype, and use our staff's contact with our customers to help us review, realistically, the issues that CTOs, CIOs and their long-suffering staff face every day. Please take a feed from our Blog to keep in touch, and let us have your input too.
So, here we are again, this time with 75,000 customers’ details out there somewhere. Could it have been prevented? If RFID tags had been attached, would the laptops have conveniently been taken past a sensor station - or did they leave through a point of forced entry anyway?
What is particularly interesting here is the decision process that [...]
For a long time, Vector has promoted the idea of Software Asset Optimization as a best practice approach to managing software assets. Our view is that management of software assets is never properly ‘joined-up’ until equal weight is given to the four elements of
Quantifying what your organization really needs. So often, this is largely overlooked because [...]
I just found this synopsis of a study by Computer Economics of the increasing maturity of IT Asset Management. The main report is only free to subscribers of the site, but the synopsis on its own contains useful comments on the scope and economic justifications for adopting IT Asset Management.
It’s been encouraging to hear that our Software Compliance and Optimization solution recently enabled another customer to respond comprehensively to the demands of a Microsoft license audit. With over 2,000+ PCs highly dispersed across the US, it was necessary to provide evidence of reliable and recent identification of every deployment of Windows, Office and other [...]
I read, with interest, this blog post which claims many business are finding BSA and SIIA audits costing them thousands because of settlement claims.
The post says expectations of some companies as to the settlement figure is far too low, resulting in “unpleasant surprises”.
These can be avoid though, as can audits in the first place, through [...]
I heard last week about an organization that had been asked by a major software supplier to cooperate with an audit. Some time later, the organization produced a tally of the total copies installed of each of the supplier’s applications. Turns out, that’s never going to be enough. Unless maintenance is totally up to date [...]
In a recent press release, Robert J. Scott of Scott & Scott, LLP highlighted what his organization feels to be some common mistakes that companies make when presented with an audit request from BSA, SIIA or a software vendor. He lists -
Failure to compile and produce accurate installation information.
Relying on internal IT staff to respond to [...]
Well known Microsoft watcher Mary-Jo Foley alerts us to a new report from Microsoft Directions with some very useful observations for any organization interested in reducing its annual spend on Microsoft renewals.
The negotation process to minimize that spend is going to be illuminated and strengthened for the end-user organization if they have clear information on [...]
A colleague pointed me the blog of Ray Wang of Forrester Research, at http://blog.softwareinsider.org/ where his post for March 24th provides some guidance for organizations looking to squeeze costs out of their operations wherever possible.
The notes make absolute sense, but they point to the need to understand application usage, not just where it is installed. Software usage [...]
I’ve heard this expression used several times recently. In many cases the context was a need to drive down the costs of IT, and in particular the cost of operating and maintaining networked PCs. Another context heard recently was that of information security; in this instance the ‘back to basics’ referred to a need to [...]
