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Software Licensing Becoming Too Complex for Most Companies to Manage on Their Own

By Tracey E. Schelmetic, TMCnet Contributor

Ask any IT director what one of his or her biggest headaches is, and that individual will probably tell you that it’s keeping track of software licenses. Vendors today license in a variety of different ways, so a single organization may be trying to keep track of licenses that are per user, per device, per core, per memory or even unlimited. Vendors say the complexity is necessary if they’re to provide users with the flexibility they want.

According to Jake O'Donnell of Search Consumerization, the addition of mobility has, in many ways, pushed the complexity over the edge.

“Mobile applications can be delivered in a variety of ways -- all of which have different licensing schemes,” he wrote. “Companies can deliver mobile apps from the cloud and pay a subscription licensing model, deliver them from a virtualized environment and pay licenses based on cores or memory, or deliver from on-premises servers and pay per-user or per-device.”

Experts say that to properly understand how licenses are being used, users need to create an easy and auditable way to understand at a glance how many licenses their organization is paying for, and how many are being used. These companies also need a way to evaluate their options and determine which licensing model will present them with the lowest costs for the functionality they require. Unfortunately, vendors don’t always make it that easy. Many IT departments are turning to third-party services to juggle their software licenses. This becomes particularly critical in cases of mergers or acquisitions, in which case the process of mixing and matching licenses between two or more organizations turns from a headache into a full-blown migraine, or in a case where a company decides to migrate to a public cloud environment.

Software asset management (SAM) services can help companies better understand their licenses and their options, keep track of them and track license expiration, which prevents the likelihood that a company will run afoul of contracts. Most companies eventually become the subject of an audit, either by a vendor or by a third-party trade group such as the Business Software Alliance (BSA). With a SAM plan in place, companies are better equipped to avoid over-paying for, or improperly using, their software assets. They also have a knowledgeable partner that can hold their hand through an inevitable audit.