Don't let the credit crunch send you to jail

The results of a FAST (Federation Against Software Theft) survey has recently hit the wires - news that 79 percent of company directors would be happy to avoid buying legitimate software licences to save them money during the downturn is a shocking figure. With a penalty of 10 years in jail and an unlimited fine, that's some risk to take.

With software audits likely to be on the rise during a difficult period, businesses need to accept that keeping a control of their software licenses will be a necessity and definitely won't be an area to cut costs. In fact by implementing a software asset management solution it will allow organisations to leverage existing IT systems, improve efficiency and reduce costs.

ManageSoft's tips to manage software assets during a downturn include:

• Redeploy unused software licences to ensure efficient use across all of the organisation, this could easily lead to a six figure saving in future purchases
• Centralise the procurement process for purchasing software licences to ensure easy tracking
• Identify unused software and reduce associated maintenance contracts and payments
• Rationalise multiple applications that perform the same function by pulling all installed applications together into one repository to analyse
• Use centralised intelligence on software installed and used, to allow the negotiation of favourable terms with suppliers on new or renewed contracts

About ManageSoft

ManageSoft is the leading supplier of Enterprise Software Management solutions for asset recognition, license entitlement, purchase optimisation, and software/OS deployment. Its solutions enable a quick asset, contract, and entitlement baseline to be established, immediate notification of compliance drift from policies and terms, and recommendations for resolution.

All its products are based on open industry SAM, ISO and ITIL standards and ManageSoft contributes to defining future standards with membership in FAST, itSMF, BSA, and Microsoft SAM, IBSMA, IAITAM. ManageSoft has developed key business partner relationships with Microsoft (Gold Certified), VMWare and Siemens. The European headquarters is based in Maidenhead, UK.