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Congress Looks to Save Big Money with Software License Optimization

By Steve Anderson, Contributing TMCnet Writer

People all throughout the United States are trying to find new ways to save money. While many have maligned the United States government as a spendthrift in the midst of an economic downturn, it seems that even the government couldn't keep it up forever, and they're looking to save some money in an unexpected place: software licenses.

No government agency can function without the ability to see, manage and account for the core assets critical to its mission. But that’s what’s happening with the federal government’s software assets.

According to reports, the federal government is having a serious problem in regard to its software licenses.

The government buys a whole lot of software ever year—more than $9 billion worth this year alone--and as such, has a whole lot of licensing to keep tabs on. Most organizations actually buy quite a bit--between 10 and 30 percent by some accounts--of software that they never use, or even needed in the first place, leaving that chunk of software to become what's known as "shelfware," or software that just sits on a shelf and never gets engaged.

For the software that they do or do not use, there are problems with the licensing itself. Sometimes licenses are bought that aren't needed. Sometimes the wrong licenses are purchased, prompting the need to buy new licenses. Licensing agreements can be complex and difficult to work with, making management necessary which in turn costs resources to perform. But since the amounts of money involved are so sizable, many agencies are looking to fix their licensing issues as a way to shore up holes in their budgets.

One agency, faced with a $15 million cut--about a third of its IT budget--found that getting its licenses in order would have saved most of that. They discovered savings of $3 million a year on just one piece of software. With that in just one agency, the rest of government is looking to follow suit. The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee's version of the DHS Authorization Bill requires the Department's Chief Information Officer to "achieve the greatest possible economies of scale and cost-savings in the procurement of software licenses.” Illinois Congressman Joe Walsh (News - Alert) introduced an amendment to the House version, requiring the elimination of "wasteful software license spending." The Department of Defense's CIO, Teri Takai, was recently grilled about spending reductions via software licenses at a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing.

Considering that something like fixing software license issues has virtually no impact on services provided--really no impact at all outside of payments going to software companies themselves--it's not surprising that federal agencies are looking to the fixes as a way to save money quickly and effectively with no need for political wrangling. The only real source of controversy in such a move comes from watchdog groups who are likely asking why no one thought to do this before.

Saving money, without having to cut services, is a change everybody can get behind, so seeing the government move in that direction--especially in an election year--is a welcome step.

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