Adobe audits are stopping – What happens to SAM?

Did you know Adobe is stopping its license audits?

It has been widely reported by Gartner research director Stephen White, that the software vendor Adobe is stopping license audits in Europe. This may come as a surprise as adobe conduct audits across the globe. This follows on from similar decisions made in America and Asia/Pacific last November. Adobe confirmed that it will maintain software audit/ compliance programming only in select markets throughout APAC. This news, coupled with Microsoft dropping their Software Asset Management (SAM) competency for partners, has led some to think that SAM is no longer needed. This has come as a surprise to many as until recently Adobe was one of the top five most active auditing software publishers.

After all, if 2 of the ‘mega vendors’ in the licensing arena are effectively acknowledging that they view their future as subscription-based licensing in the cloud, …then what do you do? Why do you need SAM when there is no chance of you being non-compliant?

The Growth of Cloud-based Software

The proliferation of cloud-based software continues to grow as new developments and advancements in the industry emerge. It is predicted that worldwide spending on cloud services will grow, expected to reach more than $141 Billion in 2019. With this in mind, there needs to be careful consideration into how to manage cloud assets and the importance of ensuring compliance and saving costs. Cloud Asset Management is changing the way in which we manage our assets looking less at risk and more on optimization.

Do you Still Need SAM for Cloud-based Software?

Even though Adobe is stopping auditing you still need SAM to manage cloud-based software such as creative suite.

The current trend to move software to a subscription-based cloud model means you should step up your SAM program for 3 good reasons:

• Overspend – many organizations will buy more software subscriptions than they actually need, to ensure that no employee is prevented from accessing the software they require to do their job. Unless you have a good SAM program in place that is monitoring usage you could quite easily end up significantly overspending on subscriptions that are never used.
• Support – if, you were planning to move all your Windows Servers into the cloud, this may require Software Assurance (SA). So, you will need to manage this within SAM to ensure SA is maintained, otherwise you could quite easily become non-compliant.
• Desktop – despite what you may have read, not everything is in the cloud, nor is it ever likely to be. Unless your organization’s employees access all your software on a phone or tablet, you will need desktops and laptops all of which will require software to run. The software on these devices will need managing as part of your SAM processes.

So if you are a software asset manager, don’t be tempted to ease off or stop your SAM activities because you believe that they will not be needed in a cloud-based future as you are likely to get a nasty surprise!

Need to find out about managing Adobe licensing or require help with the Adobe audit process?

Get in touch with Certero who can provide you expert advice and the tools to accurately manage Adobe Licensing.