Johannesburg, 23 Mar 2006
A new international software asset management standard is on track to be implemented formally in May.
David Bicket, senior manager at Deloitte in the UK and director of Investors in Software (IiS), says national standards bodies are to vote on the final draft international standard, ISO/IEC 19770-1, by tomorrow, with a positive vote expected.
He adds that May is the target for issuance as a formal ISO/IEC standard.
"This is no longer just best practice, it is something you can be certified against," comments Bicket, who co-authored the ITIL Guide to Software Asset Management. ITIL (IT Infrastructure Library) is a framework comprising best practices for IT service management.
There will be an IiS certification scheme with full public accreditation of certifiers and quality control.
IiS is a not-for-profit organisation aimed at supporting and advancing professionalism in software asset management and related IT asset management, to enable improvement of effectiveness and efficiency.
He says the certification offers all the usual benefits of software asset management, including risk management, cost control and competitive advantage, but also the ability to demonstrate good corporate governance in this area, and a greatly reduced likelihood of software manufacturer audits.
"We are also negotiating with software manufacturers. ISO and ITIL are vendor-independent, but it is in the interests of software manufacturers to ensure their customers comply with software asset management standards.
"There is a mind shift in leading organisations, that there is value in customers` management of their assets, because problems blamed on the vendor go away and relationships are better.
"So we are negotiating with software manufacturers to see what they are willing to commit to. Will they say there will be no licence audits if this is in place? Or no audits for a year? Maybe a discount if certification is in place?"
Other developments in the area include the establishment of qualifications. The Information Systems Examination Board, part of the British Computer Society, is developing exams on software asset management based on ITIL and ISO/IEC 19770-1 at foundation and practitioner levels. The first exams are scheduled for April.
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