There Are MANY Software Licensing and Awareness Tools Available For All Business Sizes and Budgets

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Earlier this week I posted about one of the Business Software Alliance (BSA) initiatives for enforcing software licensing compliance, "Another Approach To Licensing Compliance."

There are *MANY* software licensing tools and awareness communications that businesses of all sizes, and with all ranges of budgets, can use to effectively track and manage their software licenses, and make their personnel aware of the issues involved with software licensing.

The BSA provides links to 5 free software audit tools in addition to many free awareness communications, including a video in two forms, here and here; a training PowerPoint; a sample software licensing policy; a sample memo to send to employees; posters; and two awareness communications here and here; that businesses can use to help ensure their personnel are doing the right, and legal, things with their software.

The Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) provides literally dozens of software management resources here and here; and a huge amount of free awareness communications and tools here.

It is, of course, in the best interest of the BSA and the SIIA to provide free tools and awareness to help ensure licensing compliance.

There are also *MANY* companies that provide software licensing and awareness tools.

Here are just some of the vendors providing software licensing and tracking tools. I'm not endorsing or recommending any of these; review and evaluate them to see if they meet *YOUR* organization's needs.

· Agilis software

· Aladdin

· AppStream

· Crypkey

· Emco software

· EVERKEY

· GASP Computer Auditing Tool

· License Online

· Macrovision

· ManageEngine

· ManageSoft

· Sheriff

· System Integrators, Inc.

· Tally Systems

Do an Internet search using your favorite search tool and you'll find many more.

The bottom line is that no business, no matter how large or small, has any excuse not to track software use and enforce licensing requirements.

Even the smallest business can use an Excel spreadsheet to document and inventory their software, and periodically use the free software audit tools from BSA and the SIIA to determine if unlicensed software has been loaded on their network and computers.

Is it a fun task? No; probably not to most. A glamorous task? No; unless you do it in your red-carpet-going-to-the-awards-show clothes.

However, software licensing enforcement is a legal matter that all businesses must put on their list of things they must do.

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Rebecca Herold's Bio:

Rebecca Herold,CISSP, CIPP, CISM, CISA, FLMI, has been providing information security, privacy and regulatory assistance and services to organizations from a wide range of industries for over 18 years. Rebecca was instrumental in building the information security and privacy program while at Principal Financial Group, which was awarded the CSI Information Security Program of the Year Award in 1998. IT Security ranked Rebecca as one of the top 59 IT security influencers, and Computerworld put Rebecca their list of the 25 top privacy experts and on their list of the 9 best privacy consulting firms. Rebecca has been CPO for two consulting organizations, and has had her own information privacy, security and compliance business since 2004. Rebecca has written chapters for several books, dozens of articles, and has been writing a monthly privacy column for the CSI Alert newsletter since the beginning of 2001, and is working on her 11th book. Some of her other books include The Privacy Papers, Managing an Information Security and Privacy Awareness and Training Program, The Definitive Guide to Security Inside the Perimeter (Realtime Publishers), The Shortcut Guide to Improving IT Service Support through ITIL (Realtime Publishers), and The Practical Guide to HIPAA Privacy and Security Compliance. In addition, Rebecca is the leader of The Realtime IT Compliance Community where she posts to her IT Compliance weblog. You can contact Rebecca at: rebecca_herold@realtimepublishers.net.

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