Many years ago, I supported document management software like ediscovery software used primarily by legal firms. The software provided attorneys with the ability to quickly access legal documents on the network. The software included intelligent searching capabilities, powerful reporting features, and version control for thousands of documents on a local area network. The capabilities we provided boosted the efficiency of legal departments and law firms all over world.
Although we provided a great software package that supported legal departments everywhere, the software alone was useless without the expertise of a legal expert or an attorney. When organizations need legal expertise, they hire legal experts. They don’t rely on legal software alone to handle legal matters.
Hire the Right Experts
When taxes are due, tax accountants, like those on https://www.wizzaccounting.co.uk/, are hired or subcontracted versus relying solely on a tax software solution. Software vendors that audit their customers typically employ software license experts along with software tools to perform the audit.
Regarding software license management, I am amazed how many organizations still do not employ or contract with software license experts in addition to software optimization tools for software license management in the datacenter. Software companies often need a way of dealing with managing a recurring payment for delivering continued use of their software subscriptions.
Software audits are on the rise because software vendors are realizing that audits can generate revenue, and that customers are not investing in software license management solutions or experts.
As long as there are organizations that are non-compliant with their software license agreements because of poor license management, software vendors will continue to find software audits to be profitable.
In a gated Gartner report published May 28, 2014. Gartner claimed: “Tracking license entitlement has become a priority for many organizations as a means to alleviate the anxiety caused by annual software vendor audit. Gartner has seen an exponential increase in the number of contracts it has received from customers looking to purchase an SLOE tool during the past nine months. We don’t expect this trend to slow down…”
It is not practical to rely on IT managers to manage software licenses in the data center unless they have licensing expertise. This would be like having an accountant with very little legal expertise represent the organization in a lawsuit accusing executives of misappropriating funds. What I’m basically trying to say, is even if you use an effective software similar to something like FilecenterDMS, although simple to use, if you want to use it for legal documents, you still need to have someone who can understand and manage these legal documents effectively. Although the accountant could provide the information required to defend against the accusation, the accountant would not have the required expertise to handle legal process, legal negotiation and most importantly, knowledge of local applicable laws.
Here are five good reason’s every organization should consider implementing an efficient software license optimization solution in the datacenter:
- Complex License Variations
- License vendors make changes which can affect licensing
- Technology alone is not able to correctly calculate most server licensing
- Market expertise required – Having the right people with the right knowledge
- Software Audit Protection
Part 2
In the second installment of this two part series, I will discuss complex license variations, market expertise, software audit protection, and how software licensing can be affected when configuration changes are made in the datacenter.
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