AuditNet®
Software Compliance audits from a CEO 30,000 foot perspective
Software auditing for software compliance has been conducted now for many years, but what we know about software auditing after being in the industry since 1991, is that they are often never completed, or are a stop start affair, due to being overtaken by more important events, and they generally generate large amounts of data.
Sure, there are SAM and ITAM tools on the market that can assist in this area but often the auditor finds it hard to be involved or engaged in using these tools as they are managed via the IT department.
In 2010, not a lot has changed when it comes to sorting out what your compliance position is in terms of what is actually installed on your systems for software, music, movies, sound files, images and fonts.
You already know that in both 2009 and 2010 there has been, and still is, significant pressure from the stakeholders of the business to keep overhead costs low as they attempt to recover from a significant downturn over the last few years due to global events.
As an auditor, you may have already suffered cutbacks in staff levels and your capability and this increases risk when you are unable to advise and cover off all the areas needed for your organization, especially when it comes to software compliance.
Do the software vendors care about your situation? Not at all, as they are still on the rampage when it comes to chasing down organizations that under license software i.e.; have more software installed on their systems than what they are legally licensed to use.
To learn more about a CEO level perspective see
http://www.pcprofile.com/A_CEO_View_from_30000_feet.zip