What do people mean when they refer to a ‘SKU Catalogue’ for license management? In this article I hope to demonstrate why organizations utilise SKU catalogues, the difference between SKU catalogues and software recognition and the business value to SAM practitioners. Shopping for Coca-Cola Browse any supermarket around the world and you are likely to find a section of the store dedicated to Coca-Cola... 

This independent review of the Berlin release from ServiceNow is part of our 2012 SAM Tools Review. See all participants and terms of the review here. Executive Summary Elevator Pitch ITAM & ITSM repositories on a common platform Strengths One organically developed cloud platform for ITAM & ITSM Weaknesses No software recognition database Primary Market Focus Mid-market to Large enterprises,... 

This independent review of Altiris™ Asset Management Suite from Symantec is part of our 2012 SAM Tools Review. See all participants and terms of the review here. Executive Summary Elevator Pitch Configuration-centric ITAM tool – significant shortcomings for Enterprise SAM Strengths Good configuration data to provide baseline for SAM Weaknesses Missing major SAM features compared to... 

This independent review of BMC Footprints Inventory Manager and Compliance Manager from BMC Software is part of our 2012 SAM Tools Review. See all participants and terms of the review here. Executive Summary Elevator Pitch A work in progress for SAM. All the foundation pieces for a great SAM solution but not quite there yet. Strengths Great underlying inventory and compliance management Weaknesses Only... 

This independent review of License Dashboard Enterprise Suite from License Dashboard is part of our 2012 SAM Tools Review. See all participants and terms of the review here. Executive Summary Elevator Pitch The product the License Auditor built Strengths Built from the ground up for SAM Weaknesses None Primary Market Focus Mid-Market License Management Commercial Summary Vendor License... 

This independent review of FlexNet Manager Suite for Enterprises from Flexera Software is part of our 2012 SAM Tools Review. See all participants and terms of the review here. Executive Summary Elevator Pitch Black-belt SAM Strengths Industrial Strength Enterprise SAM offering, Enterprise Data Aggregator Weaknesses The strength is the weakness – not for the feint hearted. Don’t expect an... 

This independent review of AppClarity and Shopping from 1E is part of our 2012 SAM Tools Review. See all participants and terms of the review here. Executive Summary Elevator Pitch AppClarity – Plug-in for SCCM for automatic reclaim of unused software. Shopping – Enterprise App store using SCCM Strengths Most of the SAM market is focussed on reporting and accounting; 1E are focussed on taking... 

Root Cause Analysis not Bandaids If organizations are to escape the painful cycle of firefighting against software audits and progress towards fully-fledged software asset management the focus needs to be on managing and acting on exceptions. That is, identifying where leakages in management of software occur, taking action, and refining processes accordingly over time. No grand true up, but gradual... 

The list below are what I call ‘Competitive Differentiators’. They are strong features that are unique to certain SAM tool manufacturers. Once the majority of tools on the market offer these features they will no longer be considered differentiators. As well as serving as a way of picking the differences between different SAM tool manufacturers – they also provide an indicator of... 

The chart below represents a high level summary of how vendors are currently scored within the ‘TOOLS INTELLIGENCE’ service from The ITAM Review. Vendors have been assessed against our ‘Enterprise SAM’ criteria. The summary for ‘Mid-Market SAM’ can be found here. IMPORTANT: Every vendor has unique slant and a unique way of going about their business. The scores shown below are based...