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DoD Approves Flexera Software for IT Asset Management

By Rachel Ramsey, TMCnet Web Editor

Information Technology Asset Management (ITAM) is the set of business practices that join financial, contractual and inventory functions to support strategic decision making and lifecycle management for the IT environment. The Department of Defense (DoD) ESI (News - Alert) is an official initiative sponsored by the DoD chief information officer to save time and money on commercial software, IT hardware and services. To date, DoD ESI has achieved a cost avoidance of more than $4 billion off prices established on the GSA (News - Alert) Federal Supply Schedule.

Flexera Software, a provider of application usage management solutions for application producers, enterprises and governments, was recently added to the DoD’s list of approved providers of IT asset management, giving federal military agencies access to the FlexNet Manager Suite to enable implementation of Section 937, the Software License Optimization provision, of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

The law mandates the DoD’s CIO to conduct a department-wide software asset inventory, an examination of current license utilization rates, and an assessment of the means by which the DoD can achieve the greatest possible economies of scale and cost savings in the procurement, use and optimization of selected software licenses.

"Section 937 reflects bi-partisan congressional recognition of the tremendous savings the DOD can enjoy by implementing industry-recognized best practices around software license management and optimization," said Jim Ryan, Flexera Software's chief operating officer, in a statement. "The ESI contract awarded to FlexNet Manager Suite now makes it possible for the government to leverage the most trusted solution on the market to help it comply with the law and significantly reduce waste in software spend."

FlexNet Manager Suite is the only solution on ESI’s approved-vendor list that provides software license optimization capabilities. It provides entitlement license management and optimization to enable organizations to reduce ongoing software licensing costs and maintain continuous license compliance.

"The federal government spends about $9 billion annually on software," added Ryan. "By implementing Software License Optimization through FlexNet Manager Suite, it could avoid billions in unnecessary waste by ensuring it only buys the software it needs, and uses what it has."

If an organization invests two to three percent of their operational IT budget on ITAM, it could potentially realize a return on investment of as much as 30 percent in the first year. According to Flexera Software’s 2012 Key Trends in Software Licensing and Pricing Survey report , 38 percent of organizations surveyed indicated that 11 percent or more of their application spend is associated with applications that are overused, and therefore out of compliance. Moreover, 56 percent of respondents said that 11 percent or more of their application spend is associated with shelfware.