Rupert Goodwins

Mixed Signals

Any sufficiently advanced information is indistinguishable from noise

Friday 8 May 2009, 3:57 PM

Software licence management - your experiences?

For various reasons, some of which may become clear soon, we're looking at the area of software licences. In particular, we're looking at the corporate end of that particular stick, and we're really interested in people's experiences here.

So if you've got something to say about the whole process of licensing enterprise software - how easy it is to understand, specify, cost, purchase and manage - then we'd love to hear about it, the good and the bad.

Please drop me a note at rupert.goodwins@zdnet.co.uk, and let's get talking.

While the business I work for has thankfully avoided the issue of software licencing for many a year, several customers have indicated that it was a non-trivial drain on money and resources to remain compliant with software licencing.

And I think it went without saying that it was also a serious legal risk, to boot.

I understand that they had no choice but to acquire and maintain licences for proprietary software, but it still seems like a pain of a thing to have to do, and a real legal cloud over any business.

Updated by conz on May 11, 2009 12:16 PM