[oc_spacer height=”15″]Working on a computer and having a connection to the internet are, almost without exception, established in every organisation – and also in private households. When operating devices in everyday life, a number of different applications are in use. The permission to use the software is generally managed via licenses. Only a licenced software can be used legally. However, as more and more software vendors assign licenses per computer or employee, an efficient licence management is particularly important to administer software within the organisation and to save unnecessary costs during licensing.
The Licence – Right of Use of the Software
A licence refers to the right to use a software. The regulations arise from legal norms such as trade mark law, copyright law and general contract law. Only contractually specified usage rights (terms of condition, purchasing contract, licensing contract etc.) assure the user authorisation to use.
Licenses are sold to customers or end consumer by the developer of the software – or by authorised third party suppliers. They regulate, who can use the software under which conditions. Licenses can be assigned to either specific hardware or an individual person. Group or corporate licenses, however, refer to users of devices of a specific group or a company. Persons or devices, which are not included in the licenses, are not permitted to use this software.
Generally, licenses are assigned by developers or sales partners for a fee. This fee is generally a one-off cost or a subscription, where the license fee has to be paid either monthly, yearly or in other intervals. Apart from the permission to use the software, the user generally also receives technical support as well as updates and often new versions of the software – either free of charge or at a reduced cost.
Licence Management – Definition and Practical Application
Only a few years ago it was common to purchase a licence for a specific software once. Subsequently the software could be used indefinitely. Nowadays, when software is offered more and more frequently as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), this has changed. Licenses are often allocated monthly or yearly per user or per workplace.
As not every user requires access to every software, licence management is particularly important. Licence management refers to the administration of various licenses. One example is a help desk, where licence fees have to be paid per user, who uses the software. Normally only staff of the support department require access to this help desk. Licence management is an easy way to specify and control who is authorised to use which software.
Licence Management – Advantages and Disadvantages
Licence management enables the exact control and allocation of licenses to staff, who have to use a specific software. In this way, it is possible not only to control who can use a software, but to also save costs, which are incurred due to unnecessary licenses. This is achieved by only allocating licenses, which are going to be used, to the relevant user. If a member of staff changes department or a new employee starts, then the relevant license can simply be removed or newly allocated.
This may work relatively easily in small companies with few employees, however allocation and withdrawal of licenses quickly develops to a complex and extremely time-intensive work, if a company has more than 50 employees. The time required by a member of staff to manage these licenses can quickly exceed the cost savings.
Cloud Solutions for Simple Licence Management
Meanwhile, there are many alternative solutions to manage licenses. Cloud solutions simplify the work many times over. For example, oneclick enables staff to run software centrally in the cloud. With only a few clicks, the administrator specifies, which programmes and applications an employee can have access to, thus fully optimising the management by removing unnecessary complexity.
If a new employee starts, then the required software is simply allocated to her or him. If a licence is no longer required, it can be released with only a few clicks and re-allocated. In addition, the entire administration of software and licenses, above all, saves valuable time, which can then be used more effectively for other tasks.
Licence Management of the Future
Licence management is a practical way to administer software licenses within a company. This reduces costs, which occur due to unnecessary licenses. However, traditional licence management is often very time-intensive and complicated. Alternative solutions in the cloud offer a central way for licence management and enable simple and uncomplicated administration of licences. Most of the time, the costs for such cloud solutions are also manageable and in view of the many additional advantages, which appropriate solutions offer, the costs are more than reasonable.
Image Sources:
- Image 1: © Free-Photos | pixabay.com
- Image 2: © Free-Photos | pixabay.com
