November 09, 2008, 3:11 AM — According to Wikepedia, Software Asset Management ("SAM") is a business process that can help you reduce your licensing costs and optimize your software assets. The business benefits of Software Asset Management are:
Reduce software licensing costs - only purchase/renew licenses for software that is used. Track all your license rights, such as upgrade, downgrade and transfer rights to optimize the way you account for and use your software assets.
Reduce help desk costs - on average, 50% of the time spend troubleshooting computer issues is spent on obtaining the computer configuration
Minimize unauthorized software usage, security risks - SAM empowers you to use the right software for you. Ensuring that your employees are using only authorized software helps increase productivity and avoid security risks.
Reduce business and legal risk due to not meeting regulatory requirements, or not complying with software vendor license agreements.
Better negotiation capabilities with your software vendors - knowing exactly what you have and what you need, as well as the number of licenses you need and your current license rights puts you in control in your next license negotiation.
SAM can help you better control your IT assets and reduce your overall software licensing costs by only purchasing software that you use and need, organize your software license assets and keep track of your licenses agreements, terms and renewal dates. It is a process that helps you know which software is installed and used across your enterprise, and minimize unauthorized software usage. You can use it to better manage your software assets from a business perspective, reduce the cost of software licensing and improves your software asset utilization.
