Background
As the economic condition continues to falter, the rate of software compliance auditing rises. This is caused by rising pressure in companies to use unlicensed software on one end, and equivalent pressure on the side of software vendors to keep their revenue. According to BSA (Business Software Alliance) officials, the current economic climate “could have an impact on companies cutting corners and using unlicensed software to save perceived-costs”. This in turn leads the BSA step up license compliance enforcement and litigation against violators.
As a tool dedicated for the monitoring of licensed applications, OpenLM perfectly fits in the capacity of keeping BSA officials content, and CEOs of software using companies relaxed.
Ensuring license agreement compliance.
Software vendors use several methods in order to ensure license compliance.
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Inside information: Violation reports are routinely submitted to the BSA by insiders. These are individuals with inside information, that report violation of license usage for various reasons. The BSA’s response to such referrals would normally be a letter to the suspected violator, indicating that an investigation is taking place and offering to give up litigation action if a compliance audit is conducted. If the compliance audit is conducted, the company must provide a list of all the software in question, as well as the purchase dates of the software licenses.
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Piracy business intelligence may be collected by the software and gathered by the vendors in order to pinpoint license violations.
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End-User License Agreements: Large vendors may have the ability to conduct software audits for their software for license compliance purposes according to their End User License Agreements.
Pressure builds up
When the time comes for an unexpected external audit, or when the expiration of a license is closing in, companies tend to rush IT personnel to take manual inventory of existing software. This process is inefficient for several reasons:
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It is an error prone process, mainly in large companies that run hundreds of licensed applications. Moreover: employees don‘t necessarily act in compliance with license agreements.
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It is also inefficient. It consumes system administrators’ time and concentration, and may raise tension within the organization.
Continuous monitoring is needed
In order to ensure full compliance and peace of mind, organization executives should enforce formal, ongoing software license management policies. This is where OpenLM comes in into the picture:
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Having an organized license usage report reduces the risk of an external audit, and serves as an insurance policy against the consequences of liability actions by the BSA.
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Organized reports may also improve a company’s position, and have benefits when negotiating with a vendor for license renewal.
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En-route the organization of software inventory, license activity is made apparent, and software costs are reduced.
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IT personnel are taken off the mundane, but error prone procedure of manual inventory taking, and their productivity is increased.
Further reading
Software License Audits: What Does It Mean to Be Non-Compliant?
