Company buys ManageSoft to add desktop software monitoring capabilities to its portfolio Software asset management vendor Flexera Software, which has focused on data center systems, will add on Tuesday desktop software management to its portfolio through the acquisition of ManageSoft.ManageSoft Enterprise Compliance Manager products become additions to Flexera’s FlexNet Manager Suite for Enterprises, enabling management of desktop and data center applications from such vendors as Microsoft and Adobe, Flexera said. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.“They are absolutely a strategic fit for us,” said Mark Bishof, CEO of Flexera. ManageSoft’s technology “complements our enterprise license optimization solution,” he said. The desktop-to-data-center combination enables automated discovery and inventory of applications across an enterprise as well as application identification from a library of more than 400,000 software titles. Usage monitoring of applications and license mode also is featured, as is automated reconciliation of usage and entitlement data, Flexera said.Flexera sells to both enterprises as well as to software and hardware vendors. Its software can help customers save money by managing how much is spent on applications, Bishof said. The company also helps fight software piracy. “It’s a huge problem in the industry,” with about 40 percent of software either being overused or pirated globally, he said.“It’s about a $40 billion problem,” said Bishof. Flexera also has cloud ambitions. “We’re going to be sort of the ATM for software in sky,” offering information on software acquired via cloud systems, said Bishof.This article, “Flexera adds to software asset management wares,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Follow the latest developments in business technology news and get a digest of the key stories each day in the InfoWorld Daily newsletter and on your mobile device at infoworldmobile.com. Technology Industry