At a recent event to discuss Microsoft’s new Windows 7 operating system, Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer found himself being asked to simplify the company’s software licensing.

That’s a common refrain these days, for all vendors from their customers. As FAST Ltd’s recent roundtable demonstrated, making sense of vendor software licensing can be an imposing task. With new technologies and new ways to procure software, such as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and virtualisation, the world of licensing is becoming more complex. Adding to this confusion is the fact that the recession has made all businesses re-evaluate their spending habits, and consider moving from paying for IT with large chunks of capital towards monthly instalments financed from operational budgets. That will eventually reshape the way organisations buy IT, with Software-as-a-Service, managed and hosted services, virtualisation and cloud computing all adding to the potential disruption and shaking up the status quo.

As the roundtable discussed, for FAST customers such as Vodafone, Brookstreet des Roches and Lloyd’s Register, it’s all about managing the complexity. For example, Mark Duffy from Lloyd’s Register sees more difficulties around the application side, such as financials and HR applications. “We’ve invested in quite a lot of support and maintenance fees,” he says. “But why are we still paying so much money when we haven’t modified the application? It can be quite complex and not easy to understand.”

Duffy came into his role three years ago with no background in software asset management and, like many others in the same situation, he has had to learn on the job. And now he has his CEO looking over his shoulder.

“Our CEO always looks at our software budget, says it is far too high and is always trying to strip money out of it. Now we are being asked to look at an ROI of 12-18 months on what we buy or develop. It is about trying to find balance in our tactical solutions.

One solution Duffy would like to see is vendors having a standard contract for software licences with terms and conditions across the board.

Heather Garner, a software specialist at Vodafone, agrees that it can all become very complex and challenging to understand. “There are vendors with a lot of legacy software and then you have other complexities to worry about, such as how you monitor virtual environments.”

Microsoft has already begun tackling simplifying software licensing, adopting a more customer centric approach to both programmes such as Select or Open Value, and product licensing offerings too. Emma Healey, Microsoft’s licensing escalation manager, who attended the FAST roundtable, and who also has her own blog (http://ladylicensing.spaces.live.com/blog/) on Microsoft licensing issues, agrees that licensing is complicated but insists it can be demystified.

In some senses, we’re in danger of making some of the same mistakes as we did way back in the mainframe era. Complexity is a concern but we shouldn’t be frightened by it. Putting things right will require a collaborative effort from both sides, from publishers and industry experts alike, in getting vendors and organisations travelling in the same direction. At FAST Ltd, we’re here to help meet the challenge.

Bringing Your Own PC? From a SAM point of view, don’t! 

First of all, a Happy New Year from FAST Ltd. I hope you managed to keep your feet in the snow.

One of the key issues IT managers will have on their New Year’s Resolutions list is having to decide when their organisation is going to start moving towards adopting Windows 7. That will necessarily have to be tied into a desktop or laptop refreshment policy which may previously have been put on hold because of the recession.

A related trend organisations will also have to get to grips with is that of users wanting to bring their own equipment into the office. A slippery slope has already started with iPhone adoption. Instead of using company-given BlackBerries or Windows Mobile devices, staff – at all levels, from middle-managers to the chief executive – want to be using an iPhone. The chief executive of course, can probably demand one from the IT Department!

It is much cheaper for the organisation in terms of capital costs if staff bring in their own iPhone and use it on company business. Where the increased costs do hit is for the IT department in supporting these additional devices.
Now, in addition to accommodating staff’s desire to use their own mobile devices, some organisations are now embracing the idea of BYOPC (Bring Your Own PC) programmes.

The irony of the PC revolution is that relentless technology improvements mean that although manufacturers offer an array of product selections, many IT departments still don’t afford their employees many choices. As the PC market splinters into ever-narrower niches, enterprise users are often stuck with a frustratingly binary decision: desktop or laptop.

Yet the “consumerisation” of IT, in which new technologies first appear in products designed for average consumers before eventually migrating to the enterprise, is now rampant in everything from iPhones to netbooks. That’s why some organisations are considering letting employees use whatever hardware they wish in the office and is why BYOPC is now being piloted in a number of companies such as Citrix and Cisco.

The magic ingredient that enables this is virtualisation, where VDI (virtual desktop infrastructure) is used to not decrease support calls and enhance security but also enable new client delivery models such as BYOPC. It can also deliver a 20% cut in the total cost of managing the client PC environment.

A potentially thorny issue, however, with employee-owned systems is ownership of any locally stored data. Therefore, it is important to confer with the HR and legal departments and update relevant employment contracts and IT policies to clarify data ownership.

Another problem that will inevitably arise is the management of software assets on such PCs, because software on BYOC necessarily mingles business applications with personal applications.

From the business side, the argument is sure to be, "We only pay for the business application". But it’s more complex than that. Do the tools exist for a business to check each PC to determine that all are in compliance? If it is already difficult to know the state of your software assets when the devices are company-owned, imagine how complex it can be with personal applications on a device too. How, as an organisation, can you keep track of what are employee-owned/downloaded and what are business-sanctioned programs? 

There is also an operational and security threat. What if personal applications are on the device, and employees acquire non-sanctioned software that creates driver issues with existing applications, or introduces viruses or other malware? And more importantly, if personal applications are used in the business arena, approved verbally by management or acquired through a Purchasing card or other permission with Active Directory, then the business just signed up for more risk and responsibility, not less.

The idea of Bring Your Own iPhone might be acceptable to some IT departments who want to cut the cost of procurement in their mobile estate. But for some, the widespread adoption of Bring Your Own PC, may just be, in software asset management terms, a device too far.