• IT Asset Management
• PC Configuration Management
• IT Help Desk & Service Management
• Business Issue Management

Driving Down Costs with Software Asset Optimization

By Colin Bartram, Director of Technology, Vector Networks (Page 1 of 6)

Contents

• Preface
• Extending Audit's Horizons
• Software Assets Optimization Defined
• High Level Business Drivers
• Optimization's Potential Benefits
• Three Phase Optimization Process
• Fast Track to Optimization Benefits

Preface

For many organizations, efforts to improve software management start with an audit which is driven by a concern to ensure license compliance and safety from prosecution.

However, this is a largely negative reason for investing time and money into an audit.

In contrast, a balanced program of pro-active software asset management procedures can provide most organizations with financial savings and improved user productivity.

A compliance audit is essentially a closed exercise of counting installations and comparing the total with the licenses owned, whereas a pro-active management approach deals with questions such as -

• How many copies do we actually need of each application?
• Is our installed software being used effectively?
• Do we have spare licenses that we could re-deploy?
• Which applications have been over-licensed and offer scope for savings on annual maintenance renewals?

With this emphasis driving your organization's activities on software asset management, the objective of license compliance will be supported as an important – but essentially spin-off - benefit.

Next page: Extending Audit's Horizons »