Well qualified SAMs will remain critical to the enterprise
as licensing types evolve. Recognize that subscription-based licensing has been
the bane of mainframes for decades & only began leaching into the
client-server environment at the turn of the millennium.
In fact, studies have consistently found that the
prohibitive costs of subscription licensing are one of the top barriers to
mainframe growth. Expect the same with client-server.
The evolution away from perpetual licensing is a result of
two factors:
- Sheer greed on the part of software industry players. Gotta keep those revenue streams rolling.
- Legal precedent actions (in some enlightened countries) that have strongly suggested that, if a license is perpetual, it may also be labeled as possessed (as in owned). NOT a concept the software industry players want to take hold.
If you carry the concept one step further, the loss of
perpetual licenses is merely a single step toward removing what few licensing
controls enterprises have over their software. The next, and even more costly,
step is SaaS.
Capable SAMs actually represent the single point of defense
enterprises possess when licensing becomes more a process of cash flow than
services. Unfortunately, a majority of SAMs have been trained (by SAM programs
sponsored or funded by the software industry players themselves) to function
tactically (responding to external impetus) rather than strategically
(predictively minimizing risks while establishing long range cost reductions
& deliverable value).
*(This quick discussion is a response to a post by Rajat Kumar Singh
on the LinkedIn group “Software Asset Management Professionals, India.)
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