For most businesses, fully understanding their software usage and working out the number of software licences they own as well as calculating when they expire or need renewing is a constant source of frustration.

Licensing complexities continue to increase as new technology platforms launch and software consumption methods evolve, and this coupled with the introduction of cloud based usage has seen software from many vendors become increasingly harder to keep tabs on.

Microsoft for example, is changing their licensing models, offering several types of licensing schemes in order to be both cost effective and flexible – but this makes it even harder to keep tabs on existing licenses. So how do you keep on top of software licensing?

Bring Your Own Device (BYOD)

There has been a recent rise in the number of workers implementing the BYOD policy offered by their employers. Bring your own device has seen companies allowing employees to use their own personal devices into the workplace.

These devices are party to privileged company information and applications, and therefore the organisation must have the required software licenses to cover them. If there are any license compliance issues with a device, regardless of whether the end user owns the device, the company will always take the fall. This can cause unexpected costs – having to buy many new licenses to an unexpected penalty.

SOURCE: techradar.com