How Internet of Things is Influencing Software Asset Management

IoT (Internet of Things) is a hot topic right now in the tech press. As the hyperbole resides and organisations look to actual deployments, it is worth considering the influence IoT may have on your SAM and IT asset management processes. As you probably know, the concept of IoT stems from the rapidly growing number of internet-connected devices that are being created – in fact, it is estimated that it will be up to 26 billion by 2020. That’s a lot of new devices and associated software that will need to be managed.

Particularly interesting is how licensing models for backend applications and databases may change to support possible IoT scenarios. The number of potential users for the software that makes these devices possible will rapidly increase. Additionally, devices have traditionally been priced per unit, but it is predicted that in this future landscape, homogenous devices may become priced by feature consumed.

There are other complexities of IoT that will influence software asset management. As discussed, new types of software licenses for the databases and middleware of these devices will need to be understood. In addition, new assets requiring software licenses are likely to be purchased by non-IT departments, meaning more teams will need to develop a proper understanding of license management, or create new business and IT processes to support this.

SAM processes for managing software licenses are going to grow with the rise of IoT, as they did for mobile devices, remote users and transient connections. Organizations must now understand and take full control over their software asset management strategy, as optimizing SAM today will ensure preparedness for the growing complexities of tomorrow.

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