Survey highlights possible `pocketware’ bonanza for apps vendors

Here is an easily unseen, but potentially painful, `hole’ that businesses can easily fall in to, highlighted by a recent survey by IDC, sponsored by Flexera.

One of the standard complaints surrounding the implementation and use of IT is that legislation vendor business management processes are usually so far behind the curve of what is common usage with both businesses and consumers – let alone anywhere close to the bleeding edge of usage patterns – that it creates a situation where users are constantly in breach of something for all but the most limited applications of technology.

Take, for example, the advent of two parts of a pretty obvious pairing that makes a great deal of sense for growing number of business users. This BYOD, coupled with the corporate app store. That this pairing should emerge in the corporate user space has been predictable ever since the app store sales model emerged as the natural complement to the growth of mobile smartphones and tablets in the consumer market. Once users then started using their own devices at work, the corporate app store, carrying approved applications, became the obvious place for staff to source the applications they require.

But while many vendors of business applications have delivered mobile versions of their existing products, they have not necessarily caught up with delivering licencing regimes that readily map onto the consumerised new use cases that are emerging. And it would appear they have not necessarily seen it as important to either warn users or address the issues, which could mean that old and, in part at least, irrelevant licence terms continue to apply.

The main conclusion is being drawn from the Flexera Software  survey, `Application Usage Management Reportwhich has been prepared jointly with IDC, is that enterprises which fail to take into account software licence compliance risk when implementing enterprise app stores expose themselves to unexpected, unbudgeted software vendor audit penalties. 

More than 750 representatives of the software ISV, intelligent device manufacturer and end-user enterprise communities were surveyed on all aspects of managing the software licence lifecycle.  According to the report, of those implementing app stores, more than 50 percent of organisations have no plan for matching employee self-service, via an enterprise app store, with software licence compliance and optimisation.

This is despite the fact that the consumerisation of IT is taking root amongst business users because employees have become sophisticated, productive users of technology in their personal lives, according to Amy Konary, Research Vice President for Software Licensing & Provisioning at IDC.

“Companies want to tap that productivity by making technology in the workplace easier to access and use, but many consumerisation-of-IT programmes, like “Bring Your Own Device” (BYOD) and enterprise app stores, can create unanticipated software licence compliance risk and unbudgeted costs, which organisations must be aware of and plan for in order to avoid.”

This does, therefore, put yet one more management and financial burden on to end users. That is not to suggest that they should not pay an acceptable price for usage, but it does now behold the vendors to look seriously at licence regimes that do not accommodate the much faster, less committed approach to utilising applications that comes with app stores. For example, there have been recent suggestions that most consumers only use 20 percent or so of the apps they have download downloaded.

This survey simply highlights the possibility that software vendors may be sitting on a similar `nice little earner’ to the shelfware of old. Let’s for the sake of argument, call it `pocketware’.

The survey shows that the consumerisation of IT has already had a deep impact within most organisations.  For instance, within the next two years 85 percent will have implemented a Mobile Device Management (MDM) solution, while 68 percent will have implemented a BYOD policy. It shows 65 percent will have implemented a Mobile Application Management (MAM) solution, and 63 percent will have implemented a self-service, enterprise app store.

Looking at BYOD specifically, the report found that organisations are already experiencing significant benefits from consumerisation.  For instance, of the survey respondents who have implemented a BYOD policy, 80 percent report higher employee satisfaction as a result.  Some of those at least have spotted the potential licence problem, with 35 percent saying software licence tracking, management and optimisation for mobile devices is a challenge.

The vast majority of respondents, 79 percent, say they are at least generally aware of software licence management and are doing at least something proactive to manage the software estate.  In fact, 44 percent of respondents have proactively implemented a Software Licence Optimisation solution to ensure continual software licence compliance and reduce ongoing costs for software. This will, however, obviously be optimising to existing licence regimes.

And the survey suggests that most respondents are not extending that software licence management preparedness to conditions they will encounter if they adopt a consumerised BYOD and app store  environment.  According to the report, 35 percent do not know how they’ll achieve that balance.  And almost a quarter of respondents – 24 percent - have no plans to do so.

“One of the benefits of Consumerisation of IT is that it gives employees much greater access to the applications they need to do their jobs,” said Maureen Polte, Vice President of Product Management at Flexera Software.  “But greater access to software means greater use and risk of inadvertently falling out of compliance – exposing the organisation to unbudgeted software audit true up penalties.  Organisations need to be aware of these risks and avoid them by tightly integrating their enterprise app store with their Software Licence Optimisation technology and processes.”