Software is an asset
Published Mon 11 May 2009
Trude Berg, license compliance manager at Autodesk Northern Europe, explains Autodesk’s licensing policies.
With the introduction of new versions of AutoCAD, Revit and other products, Autodesk traditionally retires a past version of AutoCAD. This year it’s AutoCAD 2006, AutoCAD LT 2006, Architectural Desktop 2006 and Viz 2006’s time to vanish and this means that it’s not possible to cross-grade or upgrade from this version and there will no longer be technical support available.
While this sounds like the software becomes worthless, it’s not wholly true. Autodesk runs what it calls the Autodesk Legacy Program (ALP) which gives customers with retired version of its software an opportunity to purchase new copies of software at substantial discounts. In fact, understanding Autodesk’s licensing program is pretty advantageous to ensure upgrades, cross-grades and subscriptions are done at the lowest cost to your company. To do that it’s a good idea to know exactly what software your company owns. And over the years with staff turnover, multiple projects and workstation replacement this can be quite a task.
Before anything else, your company culture must be one in which all your employees understand the value of software, learn the difference between legal and illegal use, and pledge their commitment to the proper use of software. To do this, you must have a clear statement of policy. The statement should express the company’s goals to manage software for maximum benefit, deal only in legal software, and spell out the company’s procedure for acquiring legal software.
Once you have a policy, your next step is to take inventory of your software assets. Only by knowing what programs are installed on all the computers in your organisation – desktops, laptops, and any copies of the programs from work installed by employees on their home computers – can you determine how to proceed. With your inventory in hand, you can compare the software that’s installed on your company’s computers to what’s allowed under the terms of your licenses. Also remember that simply having an original CD for the software doesn’t necessarily mean you have authorized copies. Only the original license gives you the right to use the software and spells out the terms.
Effective software management is a continual process. You need to monitor adherence, guard the introduction of illegal software, keep your list of supported software up to date, and plan ahead for the next three years. It makes sense to have someone within your company responsible for the process, in order to centralise the job. Periodically, it’s a good idea to perform spot checks on individual computers to make sure illegal software has not been inadvertently or deliberately installed. It also makes sense to conduct an inventory every year, as you might for other valuable assets. When employees leave the company, make sure the software they worked with remains with your company and that they do not take or keep copies.
Operating in this economic downturn, there will be a number of companies that have excess licenses with subscriptions or chose to make a move to a new technology like Revit to be more productive with fewer staff. Historical software acquisitions and current usage may not add-up, you may find you use more than you have paid for.
I talked with Trude Berg, License Compliance Manager at Autodesk about software licensing. Berg explained, “I think especially in the economic environment we currently find ourselves, customers can benefit from taking ownership of their licenses and find out how many and what licenses they actually have and what they use them for. Research shows that up to 25% of our customers assets is software and they have better control over the company’s mobile phones than software! We have seen examples of customers buying new seats at full price instead of getting a discount just because they were not in control over their assets and missed out on using their retired licenses and our legacy offer. Autodesk offers 30% off on AutoCAD in exchange for a retired license.”
In my own experience, I’ve come across a number of companies that have bought hundreds of copies of software and costed it over a single three year project, then on the next project simply bought new versions again! Auditing how many copies of software you have may be an impossible task, depending on how your company has tracked its resources, with multiple sites and acquisitions over time. Through your VAR or by contacting Autodesk, you should be able to get a good estimate of what software your company has acquired over the years. It might then be a trickier task to actually go and locate the discs! Once you know what you have, you can make better decisions as to which to maintain, upgrade or cross-grade, as well as which software you may wish to mothball, safe in the knowledge that there is value, in terms of discounts, to locating these licenses should you need to expand in the future.
Software Asset Management (SAM) is becoming a bit of an industry buzzword as it helps IT management assess spending requirements and ensures license compliance. Autodesk offers a SAM Toolkit (autodesk.com/samtoolkit) to help customers get a jump start on getting their licenses under control. Of course, there is the immediate benefit of tracking software that could give you discounts.
It’s worth mentioning that Subscription is the lowest-cost method of owning Autodesk software over time. However, it can be stopped on products that are excess to requirements. To get a product back on Subscriptions the missed yearly fees have to be paid to bring the software up to date. This is so long as the software isn’t so old that it is retired, in which case it will still provide 30% off a new copy. Once you know what software you have, it would be worth contacting your VAR to work out your optimum licensing.
To find out what you have, contact: trude.berg@autodesk.com, for a report of what Autodesk has registered at your company, so that you have something to compare with when you do an inventory.
