By Cyndi Tackett
Many software asset management products in the market today talk about being able to optimize your software license position. However, not all are able to really deliver true optimization.
Consider the following example:
Date | Purchased | Installed |
1/1/2014 | 50 Microsoft Project licenses purchased on Enterprise Agreement |
|
2/1/2014 | 25 Microsoft Project licenses purchased on Select |
|
3/1/2014 | 25 Microsoft Project licenses purchased on Open |
|
| 100 Total Project Licenses purchased | 80 Microsoft Project Licenses Installed |
The company is consuming only 80 licenses for Microsoft Project. The Optimal License Position would be the following:
Entitlement | Optimal Consumption Calculation | First Purchase Calculation |
25 Microsoft Project licenses purchased on Select | 25 | 25 |
25 Microsoft Project licenses purchased on Open | 25 | 5 (20 available) |
50 Microsoft Project licenses purchased on Enterprise Agreement | 30 (20 available) | 50 |
The company would want to consume the Open licenses first, then the Select licenses, and their EA licenses last as they can save costs on the next true-up by right sizing their EA agreement. However, some products consume the first purchase it finds for any product. This means that the available software licenses may be on any of the entitlements. Showing the best license match doesn’t solve this if the product’s logic will not actually consume the best license match. And, in many cases, the effort required to configure each entitlement so that the best match is actually consumed is non-trivial.
Make sure you select a true Software License Optimization solution that consumes the best software license out-of-the-box. A powerful license optimization engine puts organizations in the best possible license position and can deliver meaningful savings.