Is your software licensing correct?

29/10/2012

As a business owner/manager this is one article you may wish to spend time reading this.

Software licensing is very often not taken seriously when it comes to the day to day running of your work, but without it you may well not be in business. Software is written by people to help you achieve your tasks, to grow and to flourish, but all to often the importance of paying for it is disregarded as less important.

In todays internet world it is relatively easy to source software, films, music and games without having to pay for it, but the ease shouldn’t outweigh the rights of the manufacturers to get paid for what they create. Would you want someone to come in an open door and steal stuff from your office, or use your facilities for free?

Here at NCI, software licensing is very important to us, both ours and yours. We know that sometimes you may get in a muddle with understanding how licensing works so we have trained staff to guide you and assist in keeping you legal whilst not over purchasing. If you need to know what you have purchased from us we can help there too.

Over the next few months you may receive a telephone call from Microsoft or another vendor followed by an email with instructions on how to self audit your network. This more than likely will be a genuine call (if you are unsure contact us to confirm). NCI’s customer base are not being targeted, all businesses throughout the UK and beyond are in line for a call eventually.

What will this mean to you?

As a business owner/manager it is your responsibility to ensure every aspect of your business is legal and software licensing is included on that. There are many ways for an audit to be implemented and routine checks are just one of them. Disgruntled employees is the favourite, as is the rewards sometimes offered for “shopping your boss”.

The outcome from the audits can also be quite dramatic and can mean anything from you purchasing the correct licensing to heavy fines and imprisonment.

Tip-off costs BSA victim £99,000

Microsoft are very active in auditing businesses at the moment, but so are Adobe, Symantec and other big players. If you are unsure as to the state of your licensing count then let us know, we can give you the software to self audit or send in staff to do it for you. Don’t change from a perpetrator to a victim in the seedy world of licensing, start off legal and stay that way.

BACK