There is almost no company left that can do without IT equipment. Employees use PCs productively; a network is established necessarily and the responsible persons purchase licenses as they think best.
Reality shows that the process of license management usually begins when it is almost too late already to find efficient strategies. The upcoming problems are pushed aside or at least the responsible persons postpone their solution. In effect, what is usually the impulse to start it suddenly?
Maybe the responsible persons have been warned by external consultants of the legal problems. It also happens that software producers themselves start to tap on the nerves of IT heads by asking, calling, or sending letters for license self-disclosures. Of course, they all just want to support their customers with gaining legal safety or straighten their license models for the future. They offer a “helping hand”.
However, reality is like this: If companies make mistakes in licensing their software products, the software producers see a high “potential of harvesting” in them. From a legal point of view, customers/companies almost have no chance if they use software products without respecting the producers’ license models. If things get rough, in case of violation of agreements or – in other words – incorrect license situations, software producers judicially effect a complete shutdown of the IT landscape running the corresponding software. For most companies this is the same as a bankruptcy. In most cases, the company is ruined this way, so there won’t be many willing to risk that. They prefer paying what the producer is asking for.
Networks and situations might be individual and even special - there is a basic process in managing licenses. This process has been established as a base for an individual strategy. To respect the existing IT landscape, VisLogic recommends the following steps:
A) Inventory discovery / determine the as-is state
B) Reviewing purchased or rented licenses / studying agreements
C) Reconciliation and identifying license deltas
D) Optimization of agreements or purchase additional licenses
To this point, this strategy can at least secure the current situation. As the company continues working, it is necessary to accept that license management is an ongoing process. The IT landscape is subject of change, so you must discover your inventory continuously. Software producers/vendors come up with offerings and version upgrades. So, all new licenses have to be respected in your license reconciliations as well.
You need to check if new agreements and licenses harmonize with old ones before you purchase them. New hardware, virtualization or cloud solutions have to be checked if they are legally compatible with existing environments.
It is definitely not enough to rely on the statements of corresponding vendors.