Vendor-Specific License Tools Loom

Most customers want to stay in compliance with their software licenses, and most would probably acknowledge they could do a better job of it than they are. In that context, what do we make of the decision by Adobe I discussed yesterday to include embedded license controls in Acrobat? Will it on balance prove to be a benefit for volume license customers, or an imposition?

Observers who are familiar with Adobe’s ALM plans each have their own take on these questions. “Adobe’s approach has pluses and minuses, but at the end of the day I think it’s a positive to have this capability,” says Ray Wang, senior analyst with Forrester Research. “From Adobe’s viewpoint, it helps their customers achieve compliance and cuts down on the cheating. And that can result in a positive side for customers in that it helps Adobe keep its products affordable.”

But having to use a vendor-specific license tool raises issues for some customers, particularly those who already have an organization-wide system for software license management in place. Adobe has said it will have “exceptions” policy allowing such customers to not use ALM, but which tools would qualify and how Adobe would vet the customer’s implementation remains very unclear. “Since they haven’t given any specifications what we’ll have to do to qualify for the exception, when will we know if we can get one?” says Jenny Hartfelder, IT licensing administrator for Bob Jones University. “We manage all of our licenses with the Sassafras KeyServer product, which allows us to track things like concurrent licensing that ALM will not. We have other software vendors who are requiring us to use tools that don’t really provide us with any information we don’t already have. Adobe is trying to pitch this as a customer benefit, but in most circumstances it’s just going to be a headache.”

The truth probably is that ALM will help some customers and cause trouble for others. “ALM is a great alternative for smaller companies with fewer machines to manage and not a lot of changes — the tool provides a single source for deploying licenses and reporting,” says Steven Russman, publisher of ECP Media. “If Adobe is successful in their roll out of ALM, and indications are they will be, it will pave the way for other publishers to do the same. Major and minor players could introduce vendor-specific license management tools with or without embedded license controls. Software asset managers in big companies could find themselves managing a slew of special purpose tools, with no real choice in the matter, if they want to continue to use the vendor’s products. This will add an unwanted layer of overhead and cost.”

Russman isn’t the only observer who assumes that other major players will be introducing their own license controls for corporate customers. No one — perhaps not even in Redmond — seems to know for sure what Microsoft will do with corporate versions of Vista and the next Office suite, but Microsoft officials have made some comments indicating there will be a new approach to Vista volume license key management. And it’s hard to believe they will nothing, given how often they blame stolen corporate key codes for forcing them into the ugly and uglier WGA anti-piracy campaign.

Interestingly, Symantec is moving in this direction too, but in a way that seems far more customer-friendly than Adobe’s installation-permission model. A license inventory and discovery tool called the Symantec License Inventory Manager (SLIM) is already available at no charge to enterprise who want to track some of the Veritas products, but only if the customer wants the help. “Starting in 2007, all Symantec enterprise product information will become available from SLIM,” a Symantec spokesperson told me. In the future, use of SLIM or another software asset management tool may be required in some deals, but “the philosophy behind SLIM assumes that enterprise customers wish to maintain self compliance. The intent of SLIM is to help customers carry out self-service inventory of their Symantec assets in order that they are able to manage their entitlements more effectively, as well as have visibility on version control / migration information. The current version of SLIM goes some way to solving the problem, but still requires some evolution in order to address customer requirements across our entire product range.”

One thing that everyone agrees on is that what’s really needed is a standard that corporate customers can use to track product licenses from multiple vendors. But with three of the biggest software companies each taking their own approach, how likely is that to happen? Russman, who is collecting feedback for an ISO working group on software asset management standards, sees some cause for hope in the increased interest in standards that the embedded license controls is prompting. And, since ECP’s recent member surveys have shown Adobe as one of the software publishers most likely to demand license audits from their customers (see “A License to Audit”), there might another kind of customer benefit. “The good news is that publishers’ enforcement efforts are likely to decline,” Russman says. “That’s sure to please everyone.”

If the choice is between the software audit police knocking on your door and something like Adobe’s Audit License Manager, all corporate customers will choose the latter. But does that have to be the choice? And how many different sets of tools involving different kinds of licensing information will customers have to use? Perhaps the true customer benefits of Adobe’s ALM move will be to focus attention on some of these questions.

Benefit or bane — what’s your take on ALM and other vendor-specific license control tools? Post your comments on my website or write me at Foster@gripe2ed.com.

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