Managing Software: An Integral Intangible Org. Asset.

Vineet Sood

Symantec

What are Assets?

Last Long Time Large Cost Can be Sold

Item in use Debtors Money in Bank

2

FIXED CURRENT

BALANCE SHEET VIEW:

Asset Management

Property Manager: Rooms/Villas Stock Manager: Equity’s Channel Mgr: Partner’s*

IT Manager ?

* We don’t own the Partners but we still manage them for best mutual results.

What’s a Software?

Is Software a ‘Good’ ? Is it a ‘Service’ ? Fixed asset ? Tangible or INTANGIBLE ?

A software license agreement is a contract between the "licensor" and purchaser of the right to use software.

The TAX laws on software show that we as community have inconsistent views on Software.

Biggest Intangible Asset ?

Brand Customers People Technology Processes Services Intellectual Property

INFORMATION BASE

Information is evolved by a Person or in a IT Systems:

Invest in People : Train, Promote & Retain them

Invest in Technology: In today’s business world information is Created, Transported and Stored in IT Hardware & Software. There is no other evolution of information. Hardware is purchased in a visible form factor. Software is not purchased always.

• Partial Compliance – Honest abuse• Misuse – Full Abuse

Types of Piracy

Full Misuse Maritime Piracy – Robbery – Somalia Music Piracy – Counterfeiting – Is this Theft? – it happens to S/w, it will happen on ebooks.

Honest Abuse of Software (Partial Compliance) Conscious or Unconscious Lack of Awareness

• License Misuse• End User Piracy• Internet Piracy• Hard Disk Loading

Honest Abuse: Conscious & Unconscious Do Nothing; Hope for best Node Locked; then Floating Licenses

S/w Adoption Rates Increased; Distributed Envir. Complex/Multiple Lic. Regimes

OEM bundle, Off the Shelf Trialware/Shareware/Freeware Limited Site/Unlimited Lic Open Source/Proprietary Concurrent Users/All Users VPA, PAS, SAAS adding new dimension

1980

’s

1990

’s

& 2

000’

s

Side effects of Honest Abuse

Vulnerable to Threats/Malware Compromised Performance Levels

Productivity Loss No Support or Upgrades

Final Advise..

Don’t make your software ASSET,

a LIABILITY that will cost you in long run.

Adopt SAM.

With SAM…

You know what you have

Buy only what you need

And use your assets effectively at every stage of their lifecycle.