Dell Software helps customers reduce software licence compliance risk

Dell Software has announced the latest version of the Dell KACE K1000 Management Appliance, which now includes integrated software asset management to boost software licence compliance, while helping lower IT costs. A flagship product in Dell Software’s endpoint systems management portfolio, the K1000 adds automated software asset identification, tracking and optimisation to its comprehensive list of capabilities for managing the deployment, operation and retirement of an organisation’s critical software assets.

The rapid adoption of virtualisation, cloud computing and Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) further complicates software licensing structures, which can increase a company’s risk of non-compliance. BSA | The Software Alliance, a global advocate for the software industry, has settled unlicenced software cases with 12 different companies from January 2012 to May 2013. These settlements, valued at an estimated $3.3 million, reveal the costly consequences of non-compliance while reinforcing the critical need for highly reliable, accurate reporting of all software licences.

With this latest release, the K1000 simplifies the increasingly arduous task of responding to software audits by tracking, assessing and ensuring software licence compliance across multiple versions, as well as inconsistent package and component names. Additionally, the K1000 eases the burden of determining software usage, which is exceedingly difficult due to complex software licensing structures. As a result, Dell Software can empower organisations of all sizes to identify software licences with great accuracy while making it easy to reclaim and reallocate underutilised software.

“Constant market changes such as mergers, acquisitions and product End-of-Life (EOL) announcements often increase an organisation’s risk of exposure to non-compliance fines or software overspending,” said David Kloba, general manager of Endpoint Systems Management for Dell Software. “By extending the K1000’s capabilities with automated and integrated software asset management, Dell is making major strides in helping our customers improve software compliance, reduce unnecessary licence costs and accelerate software migrations.”

Unlike legacy systems management solutions, which often encompass separate point solutions, the K1000 integrates all its systems management functionality in an easy-to-deploy physical or virtual appliance. The new software asset management features include:
· Software titling engine that automates detailed software audit and compliance reporting to avoid licence violations and associated fines. According to a software asset management survey by Ernst & Young[1], up to 60 percent of customers polled do not monitor software usage and usage patterns, although the software infringement liability can equal up to three times the retail value of each unlicenced software installation.
· Integration with the Dell Application Catalogue (DAC), which provides access to approximately 110 million unique executable files. A web-based offering that is fully integrated with the Dell KACE K1000, the Dell Application Catalogue has the advantage of daily updates and the addition of approximately 4,000 new applications annually. DAC offers deep cataloguing capabilities with the ability to map minor software versions to the parent package for more accurate licence tracking and usage across major versions of Microsoft Windows and Apple applications. Additionally, software suite recognition easily discerns whether an application has been installed in standalone mode or as part of a broader software suite.
· Automated metering that enables administrators to view usage information based on when an application is actually run, for accurate compliance reporting and fast identification of underutilised software.

In addition to its software asset management enhancements, the new release of the K1000 enables IT administrators to capture and report new hardware characteristics to better gauge organisational readiness for OS and application migrations and upgrades. For any company planning an imminent move to Windows 7 or Windows 8, the ability to produce an accurate inventory of hardware and software assets is an essential first step in the migration process.