| The Sri Lankan arm of IT Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) lobby the Business Software Alliance (BSA) recently indicated it would be campaigning to create awareness about the Software Asset Management (SAM) business process, which when implemented by corporates allows them to "automatically be in compliance with software licensing which is now a legal requirement in Sri Lanka."
Indicated as "a tool to streamline processes, reduce costs, and enhance reliability, efficiency, accuracy and security of operations", the BSA suggests that SAM would foster "prudent management of software as an ‘asset’ that companies can maximise on their software and ensure reliability, efficiency, accuracy and compliancy of their operations. While software inventory and tracking are integral parts of SAM, so are the policies, procedures, technologies, procurement, delivery, deployment, and support of a company's software assets."
Additionally, again according to the BSA, "SAM is also about saving time and money as well as increasing employee productivity and efficiency. Since software can represent some 25 per cent of the budget for information technology, cost control is the most significant reward corporates can reap from proper software management."
Also noted by the organisation is that "[software] licence non-compliance can take place when companies do not manage their software resources, thereby allowing under-licencing – where one copy of software is installed on multiple PCs – or unauthorised installation of illegal software by staff takes place. This much-overlooked aspect is of key importance to companies.
To get the most of software, it has to be managed well, just as any other valuable company asset. Poor software management can easily mask software piracy, an illegal activity that can impose very costly consequences to the business and criminal liability to senior management."
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