Unlicensed indirect user access and consumption, if addressed proactively and effectively, need not be costly or painful. On the other hand, if compliance issues are identified as part of an audit, it could generate a significant financial burden and create an opportunity for SAP to evaluate and interpret your data before you do. Settlement demands are likely to include full list pricing and retroactive penalties. 

Are you aware that your company may be losing millions or tens of millions of dollars per year because of insufficient software asset management (SAM) and audits by SAP?

Compliance Tech Talk: Top 5 sources of non-compliance with Microsoft: How to avoid these pitfalls 

Clarify has performed hundreds of Microsoft baseline licensing reviews, and the following includes findings we see come up regularly in Microsoft audits.   

Six strategies to save money at your next Microsoft Renewal

Implementing the following 6 strategies can help significantly reduce your costs:

FAQ On Quest Licensing/ Software Audits

Q1) Is there an audit clause in Quest vendor agreements

Yes, it can be found in the software transaction agreement. Quest will claim that if you accept any click through agreements latest software transaction agreement applies. 

https://www.quest.com/legal/sta.aspx

It is difficult to achieve a full understanding of current requirements for Java, as much of the critical information is found only in the fine print around licensing and the cost of support. Following are some common misconceptions about this popular product.

Many people still believe Java is free. This misconception has its roots in the history of its usage and ownership. Java was created by Sun in 1991 and was then released as a free product with the promise of “write once and run anywhere.”  Its premiere as a free product helped Java to become one of the most popular program languages in the world. It came into widespread use also because  it can run on many different platforms, regardless of the operating system (OS) in which it was originally developed.  As a result, Java has been deployed on most devices including servers, desktops, laptops, and mobile devices.  It has also been bundled into many other products, supporting numerical computing, mobile computing, and desktop computing.

Everyone has Java installed in their environment. It is the most popular language deployed with two billion installs. You might not know that Java was created by Sun in 1991 and released as a free product with the promise of “write once and run anywhere.”  This resulted in Java being deployed on a multitude of devices such as servers, desktops, laptops, and mobile devices. Oracle purchased Sun in 2010 and then in January 2019 made Java fee-based (any commercial use became fee-based). What does this mean for you?

Quest is owned by a hedge fund, and private equity firms also have a large stake in Micro Focus. Software audits are essential parts of the revenue for both vendors. Quest and Micro Focus are not Tier 1 vendors like Oracle and Microsoft; however many customers are surprised to find widespread installation and usage of Quest and Micro Focus products in their IT environments.

Quest and Micro Focus will typically hire public accounting companies like Deloitte or KPMG to perform the audits. In some cases, Quest will themselves perform software compliance reviews. Quest audits are very thorough, and they will run their own custom scripts and home-grown tools. In September 2020, The ITAM Review reported that Micro Focus was rated the “most unhelpful vendor” in their survey on 2020 software audits, and they have shown they are willing to take audit cases to court.

Can I still be under a software license audit during the COVID-19 pandemic?

The question has come up many times during the COVID-19 pandemic, are software publishers still auditing accounts. The answer in a word is ‘yes’.