IBM software is expensive. In some cases, very expensive. While this may represent a necessary cost of doing business for many companies with mission-critical software solutions developed on or using IBM applications, all IBM customers clearly are incentivized to maximize the value of their software expenditures with Big Blue. For an increasing number of those…
Software license compliance is a task that typically requires constant vigilance. Despite a CIO’s best efforts, it is almost inevitable that software will be deployed on a company’s computers at some point without having the necessary licenses to permit such use. For most software, the response to such a discovery will be to simply remove…
One of the most critical steps of any business faces in any software audit is conducting an internal analysis of deployments to entitlements, preferably before any audit data is shared with the auditors. That internal review serves several purposes, including (1) identifying deployments for which a company’s license documentation may be lacking, thereby giving the…
In the software licensing world, all audits are not created equal. On one hand are the “true,” contractual audits. Here, the applicable license agreement gives the software publisher the right, usually upon notice and sometimes limited in frequency or scope, to demand access to the systems where its products are installed or a report of…
There is a set of related questions our software-audit clients frequently ask us that boil down to variations on one or more of the following: Why am I being audited? What if anything did I do to cause this? How can I avoid it in the future? Unfortunately, those questions often do not have clear…
Many businesses expend far too little effort in securing appropriate non-disclosure agreements during software audits. Some businesses even wholly overlook NDAs during the audit process, believing that they have no leverage to demand reasonable protections for the information that the auditors will ask them to provide. This is a mistake that can cost a company…
Large companies that invest heavily in software licensing are familiar with the extremely one-sided nature of most software license audit clauses. It is a pleasant surprise when such clauses do not give software publishers rights to conduct audits at any time and for any reason, and when they do not require the audited companies to…
Software publishers know that the vast majority of their customers are, to varying degrees, out of compliance with the terms of license agreements governing their use of the publishers’ software products. Especially in larger enterprises, managing and maintaining a company’s license position is a daunting and maybe even impractical task, especially given the increasingly complex…
Agreements often contain clauses allowing the parties to review books and records, “Books and Records” clauses. These are often boilerplate clauses included in agreements without much consideration from the contracting parties. When a Books and Records clause is used in a software agreement without a software audit clause, it can lead to serious consequences. It…
No one likes to be audited. In most cases, there is little that a business can do at the outset of an audit to avoid licensing exposure, if that business has historically inadequate software asset management processes. However, there are steps that all audited companies usually can take – regardless of which publisher is conducting…
There are many good reasons that businesses often cite in seeking to transition their IT operations to a vendor-delivered Cloud environment. It’s scalable. It’s more reliable and secure than what the business may be able to deliver for itself. It’s (often) cheaper than keeping the environment in-house. Then there’s this one: “All I have to…
Enterprise-level software solutions often are very complex products requiring a level of expertise that may be outside the experience or skill sets of generalist IT teams. Many businesses therefore rely on the services of independent software vendors and consultants to evaluate their needs for particular solutions, to procure the required licensing, and to deploy and…
In many cases where we are retained to assist companies targeted for software audits after software-deployment data already has been submitted to the auditing entities, we have the regrettable obligation to let our clients know that they have disclosed too much. Over-disclosure can cost a company millions of dollars, and it is typically very difficult…
Businesses often have close relationships with software vendors, and that closeness usually is in direct proportion to the extent and importance of those vendors’ software products in the businesses’ network environments. However, despite their best marketing efforts, software vendors’ interests always will remain aligned primarily with their own bottom line, and that often means that…
Software audits can be intensely frustrating ordeals for businesses to navigate. Many publishers will go to great lengths to cajole their customers with assurances of amicability and license-optimization opportunities, but most IT managers know that the reality of audits in almost all cases is anything but friendly and fraught with pitfalls. However, the first things…
Most software audits eventually reach a point after all the deployment and license data has been collected when the auditors – often employees of an accounting firm like Deloitte or KPMG, though sometimes the publishers’ own internal audit teams – present their draft audit findings to the audited business. At that stage, the auditors then…
In defending against software audits initiated by publishers such as Microsoft or IBM, many businesses make the mistake of assuming that those publishers or their designated auditors know what they are talking about when it comes to determining what licenses need to be purchased in order to achieve compliance. After all, the companies that wrote…
Most companies with more than a handful of computers in their IT environments rely on the results of network-inventory tools to gather the deployment data needed for accurate software audits. Without the tools, a business would be required to assign valuable resources to manually looking at the titles installed on each machine. Therefore, it should…
Microsoft licensing is a complex, multi-faceted undertaking, with different rules and license metrics applying to different products. In the context of software audits initiated by Microsoft, it is important to keep in mind the fact that the auditors hired to perform those investigations are fallible human beings and that they can (and do) make mistakes…
In recent years, Microsoft seems to have been shifting an increasing volume of its license-compliance resources toward what it calls Software Asset Management (SAM) reviews. These “optional” engagements typically are proposed by Microsoft personnel with whom a company has not had any prior interactions, and the company often receives no advance warning or introductions from…
