- Organizations can overspend on software when purchased licenses are unused, poorly managed, or disconnected from actual demand.
- Automated software usage monitoring helps IT managers adjust license counts, support audit compliance, and control IT spending.
- Documenting actual software usage can strengthen vendor negotiations, reduce IT costs, protect IT assets, and improve employee productivity.
A renewal invoice for a high-end CAD package lands at 30 percent above last year. The vendor cites inflation; the IT manager has no counter-evidence. Across the floor, dozens of seats sit untouched for weeks at a time, but nobody can prove it without the usage data to back the claim. Spending too much on software licenses is rarely a budgeting mistake — it is a visibility one. Automated usage monitoring shows where seats sit idle, supports audit defense, and turns the next renewal conversation from a price-taker exchange into a documented negotiation.
“Dept. of Veterans Affairs spent millions on PC software it couldn’t use[i]”, according to a recent report by Sean Gallagher of Ars Technica. It was reported that they purchased 400,000 licenses for Symantec’s Guardian Edge encryption software, leaving more than 84 percent of those licenses—worth about $5.1 million, including the maintenance contracts for them—uninstalled. This news shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone who knows their way around managing IT assets. But the truth is, even well-managed IT departments can make software purchasing blunders. Why? Because most organizations spend too much on software they don’t use.
IDC. a leading IT research firm, has released results from their research showing continued growth in software by 4.7% year over year, achieving a total market size of $167 billion[ii]. Since improving workforce productivity is one of many ways to stay competitive, many companies invest more on software applications for them to work smarter and faster. But if software isn’t managed well it can end up being shelved rather than used, and can cause compliance and audit issues that drain profits from the company.
Monitoring software usage can be like finding a needle in a hay stack. IT managers need to get an overview of how their software assets are being used so they can adjust license counts more effectively, ensure audit compliance and control IT spending. An automated software usage monitoring tool can be a good solution for managing licenses. A properly implemented and centralized license management system should be able to measure and calculate true global concurrency of software usage and produce accurate software usage reports across an entire organization.
Documenting actual software usage can aid companies who want to increase their negotiating leverage with software vendors, reduce IT costs, protect their IT assets, and even increase employee productivity. Learn more about how you can harness the value of software asset management. See how software usage monitoring works; schedule a live demo today.
[i] Gallagher, Sean (thepacketrat). “Dept. of Veterans Affairs spent millions on PC software it couldn’t use.” 22 Oct 2012, 7:47 a.m. Tweet.
[ii] IDC. “Worldwide software market grew 4.7% year over year in 1H12, reaching total market size of $167 billion.” 7 Nov 2012, 1:07 p.m. Tweet.
