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Lack of Software License Compliance Threatens IT Organizations of All Sizes

(June 10, 2008)-- KACE, a systems management appliance company announced the results of a new study that revealed nearly two-thirds of IT executives and managers believe their companies have not taken appropriate steps to ensure compliance with the license agreements for software they have deployed. The survey further reveals these same IT executives believe their companies are ill-prepared for a software license compliance audit. Citing insufficient software discovery capabilities and manual license tracking processes, IT organizations are left exposed to painful outside audit risks.

The research, consisting of an online survey of almost 350 respondents, was commissioned by KACE to gather data about the current state of software licensing compliance in corporate IT. The survey focused on hot-button corporate issues such as unlicensed software, license compliance processes and tools, and perceptions of the impact of software audits. The survey showed IT organizations have not taken adequate measures to track whether or not deployed software is in compliance with license agreements. In fact, over half of the organizations polled revealed they track software license assignments manually, or not at all.

“The thought of software license compliance can often generate images of big software companies coming after their clients with stringent audit processes in order to wring money from them and find unlicensed software in use,” said the study’s author Diane Hagglund of King Research. “In reality, most IT organizations want to be in compliance, but they are struggling with the effort to discover software assets, track license assignments, reconcile purchased licenses to installed software, and take the necessary steps to ensure compliance.”

A summary of the key findings from the study include:

* 69 percent of respondents are not confident that they are fully in compliance with software license agreements;
* 60 percent believe they have unlicensed software deployed;
* 56 percent track software license assignments manually or not at all;
* Only eight percent of participants have a fully automated process for tracking software license compliance.

Understanding the need to streamline compliance management, KACE offers an appliance-based approach that allows IT administrators to easily and effectively discover software, assign software licenses, and track compliance. Many IT professionals, especially those from small and mid sized organizations, are forced to monitor software licensing of each application deployed to ensure compliance with vendor agreements. The KBOX family of appliances fulfills all of the compliance management needs of the medium enterprise by automatically discovering, tracking and reporting on all software and licenses in order to simplify compliance.

“With KBOX, we are able to automate complex and time-consuming software discovery and license tracking processes,” said Michael Heuer, IT customer support manager for Portland Community College. “We work with numerous software vendors, and to keep compliant, need to monitor the license allocation for each. KACE’s technology makes this task easy for us by quickly scanning the entire network and compiling an inventory of all installed software. In many cases, KBOX reports even more information about the software than the vendor with whom we have our license agreement. Now, we are sure our license agreements match the software we have deployed.”

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