1E AppClarity for Microsoft License Management

ITAM News & Analysis

1E AppClarity for Microsoft License Management

02 October 2014

6 minute read

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This is an independent review of technology for managing Microsoft licensing and agreements.

Also participating in this review:

A full comparison and Group Test results can be found here: https://itassetmanagement.net/2014/10/02/microsoft-license-management/

Executive Summary

Elevator pitch	1E is a pioneer in the proactive reclaim of unused licensing. Using software usage information from SCCM, 1E can claw-back unused software in an automated fashion via a customer friendly user interface, providing the opportunity for users to control and manage the whole experience.
Strengths	Pioneer in reclaim of unused desktop licenses in a user friendly fashion Intuitive interface with business focussed reporting
Weaknesses	Partial coverage of Microsoft licensing types Microsoft SCCM focussed as a data source Reporting only – limited license records and contracts management
Primary Market Focus	Size: Large enterprises Use: Proactive reclaim of volume desktop titles. Environment: desktops and some datacentre

Commercial Summary

Vendor	1E
Product	AppClarity
Version Reviewed	4.5
Date of version release	February 2013
Year founded	1997, Turnover $50 million USD
Customers	50 active customers deployed to over 800,000 seats.
Pricing structure	Priced per device.

Rating

Microsoft License Management Features	Rating
General features that aid Microsoft license management	[icon name=”star”][icon name=”star”][icon name=”star”]
Microsoft software recognition	[icon name=”star”][icon name=”star”][icon name=”star”]
Microsoft product family and suite recognition	[icon name=”star”][icon name=”star”][icon name=”star”][icon name=”star”]
Management of Microsoft licensing types	[icon name=”star”][icon name=”star”]
Efficient Microsoft spend (low risk, low waste)	[icon name=”star”][icon name=”star”]
Microsoft contracts management	n/a

Key to Ratings

[icon name=”star”][icon name=”star”][icon name=”star”][icon name=”star”][icon name=”star”]	Strong	Market leader
[icon name=”star”][icon name=”star”][icon name=”star”][icon name=”star”]	Good	Well executed and competitive offering
[icon name=”star”][icon name=”star”][icon name=”star”]	OK	Adequate, meets requirements
[icon name=”star”][icon name=”star”]	Weak	Poorly or partially executed
[icon name=”star”]	Absent	Missing key requirements

Independent Review

1E has a solution for management of Microsoft licensing called AppClarity.

AppClarity’s primary source of inventory is data from Microsoft configuration manager via integration. We reviewed 1E’s SCCM integration back in 2012 see “Microsoft SCCM (ConfigMgr) Plug-Ins Group Test”.

AppClarity offers a good, intuitive interface allowing Software Asset Managers to focus in on licensable Microsoft titles and ignore all other configuration noise.

Historically 1e has focussed on desktop volume titles such as Microsoft and Adobe but has begun to develop features to address datacentre software publishers such as VMware. AppClarity can manage per processor and per core based licensing for Microsoft server based products as well as tracking software installed within App-V applications.

However AppClarity only offers partial coverage of license types typically found in the estates of large Microsoft customers. AppClarity does not support Client Access Licenses, user or subscription licensing. Managing users in particular is a significant hole as the vast majority of newly signed Microsoft agreements are likely to be user centric.

AppClarity also has no SKU catalogue and only limited license records management and contracts management. AppClarity’s primary focus is the reclaim of unused software and could easily be used to compliment another SAM tool including those featured in this review, although there may be areas of overlap.

1E is a pioneer in the proactive reclaim of unused licensing. Using software usage information from SCCM, 1E can claw-back unused software in an automated fashion via a customer friendly user interface, providing the opportunity for users to control and manage the whole experience.

This is a great utility for proactively removing unused Microsoft titles from your estate whilst maintaining a positive experience for end users.

The ITAM Review likes the way that AppClarity is action oriented and allows organizations to automate the cleansing of unused software from the estate but it needs some more in-depth licensing features to compete with the main SAM market.

AppClarity can be connected to a sister product called ‘Shopping’ which provides an App store experience and software deployment mechanism to ensure that once and estate is cleansed of unused software – only authorized Microsoft titles with a business requirements get installed.

In summary, AppClarity is not quite the fully rounded solution for managing your Microsoft estate but is certainly a powerful utility for removing waste and allowing organizations to enter true-ups and negotiations from the leanest point possible.

Screenshots

In their own words

“AppClarity is a Software License Optimisation tool that allows rapid reduction in software license costs across organizations. AppClarity is very simple to setup and use, and presents a single console for the Software Asset Manager.

AppClarity gives clear and simple visibility of an entire software estate, across servers and PCs, enabling users to make immediate reductions in software costs, also providing the information software asset managers need to prepare for a software audit. AppClarity financially quantifies all unused software and, for PCs, it can initiate automatic user-centric software reclaims.

AppClarity leverages Microsoft Configuration Manager and other inventory systems to instantly obtain an accurate picture of all applications deployed across an IT estate. Every software install is instantly analysed by using data from Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager to determine if it is used, occasionally used or unused. This powerful information is available at your fingertips for every software product in your PC environment.

Unused applications can be harvested from PCs using a policy-based approach. When a software installation is unused it can be reclaimed automatically or with user consultation using an intelligent opt-out process. Savings achieved through this software license optimization initiative are tracked and reported via AppClarity’s single console.

AppClarity’s extensive reporting capabilities allow the immediate production of vendor compliance reports for Adobe as well as other vendors. This saves software asset managers significant effort in the collection and reconciliation of data.”

Video

https://vimeo.com/61184766

1E AppClarity for Microsoft License Management