Championing the professional management of software
and protecting members rights

Kaleidoscope is full of industry news and will help users to:

• stay up to date on new trends and hot topics that affect how software is used in business
• find ideas for identifying and eliminating software and IT management risks
• guidance on the latest software asset management (SAM) best practice
• read about changes in legislation and lobbying activities to protect the IP rights of software publishers

Kaleidoscope also provides links to forthcoming conferences, seminars and webinars, results of recent surveys, white papers, tools reviews and more. All of the content on Kaleidoscope is provided by FAST IiS and its Members.

If you would like to know more about providing content for Kaleidoscope, please contact Breda O’Shea at breda.oshea@fastiis.org.

March 2010 Enterprise License Optimisation: More Software at Less Cost Brent Pietrzak – Vice President, Client Service, Flexera Software Although high-value applications, such as those offered by IBM, Microsoft, AutoDesk, Oracle, and SAP are more important than ever, many enterprises today face tight software budgets. Fortunately, a new set of tools and best practices, Enterprise License Optimisation (ELO) can help companies stretch their software budgets. Facing economic pressures software vendors are raising their prices. SAP, for example, has moved customers to a premium support service costing 22% of the base licensing fee, up from 17%. Oracle has increased the cost of certain database options by up to 40%. To increase revenue, vendors are performing more software license audits and creating more complex licensing models. Meanwhile, the growth of virtualisation has created a "virtual sprawl" of software instances, increasing the potential for non-compliance and higher licensing costs. Today's standard solution, Software Asset Management (SAM), can't meet these challenges. SAM solutions focus on counting what you have, they do not provide the visibility into license usage ... Read more...
March 2010 Licence Dashboard and the Microsoft Software Asset Management Programme can help your organisation achieve lean I.T. Sean Robinson – Associate Director, Phoenix Software Lean IT is all about maximising IT resources while minimising waste. A lean organisation is able to maintain and deliver high levels of service without losing control of its financial and legal responsibilities. With IT budgets being slashed, there has never been a better time for organisations to take control and manage their IT resources effectively. GETTING STARTED First things first, it is important that you identify which assets are spiralling out of control or which assets attribute the most on-go... Read more...	March 2010 Effectively licensing a virtualised environment Kevin Trinkwon – Solutions Manager, Managed Licence Services, Trustmarque Solutions Virtualisation has become one of the major buzz words of the last 4 years within the IT industry. According to Gartner: "Virtualization will be the highest-impact trend changing infrastructure and operations through 2012... Virtualization will transform how IT is managed, what is bought, how it is deployed, how companies plan and how they are charged..." 1 The ROI your business could achieve through virtualisation could easily be negated if the business is found to b... Read more...
March 2010 Focus Your SAM Efforts on Business Objectives and Not Software Discounts Cris Wendt – Principal Consultant with Flexera Software Global Consulting Services Organisation Lately, a lot has been written about how ITAM and SAM usage measuring tools can help enterprises reduce software costs. No one wants to pay more than they have to for their software, but simply looking at the cost of software is only part of what you need to consider. No company is in business to buy software, so simply using usage ma... Read more...	March 2010 License Compliance, Overuse and Piracy Michael Goff – Marketing Manager, V.i. Labs Despite a commonly held belief that buying software is the same as buying personal property, your rights are actually limited by the terms of the software license you purchased. Software licenses are contracts that govern your rights to install, use, or transfer an application. Since you have experienced teams in IT, Procurement and Legal, you don't need to worry about complying with all the license terms, right? Not necessarily. Here are some of the risks and pitfalls you need to be aware of. "We paid for it,... Read more...