February News Roundup

News

Forever 21 accused of pirating Adobe software – It was reported in February that fashion retailer Forever 21 have been knowingly pirating copies of Adobe software. According to Adobe, they even told Forever 21 they were in breach of copyright, but they continued to do so. Read more about this case in our article.

IBM to accept Flexera for sub-capacity reporting instead of ILMT – IBM is to accept sub-capacity reporting from Flexera Software’s FlexNet Manager in place of ILMT, TADd and SUA. Whilst we’ve heard of this being acceptable on a deal by deal basis in the past, this is the first time IBM has publicly recognised a SAM tool for meeting their compliance reporting standards.

Lenovo faces lawsuit for pre-installing Superfish adware – Big news that broke in February was that Lenovo had pre-installed software called Superfish that was used to attack users of their hardware. Computer Weekly provides the full story within the link above.

Businesses opt for Amazon Web Services public cloud – AWS are currently leading the way in cloud services for businesses. However, the article states that Microsoft Azure is catching up, but AWS are currently the ‘go-to’ platform for organisations.

Microsoft achieves ISO cloud certification – Microsoft has achieved compliancy with ISO/IEC 27018:2014, which relates to data protection within cloud services. This relates to Microsoft products including Azure and office 365.

Data breaches up by 49% in 2014, exposing more than a billion records – Cyber criminals have accessed over 1 billion data records for the calendar year of 2014. This is a 78% increase in the number of data records stolen from 2013. Have you secured your data?

Interesting Reads

SAM Tool buyers guide – ITAM Review – A fantastic guide on what to look for when looking to purchase a SAM tool. There are a number of useful tips and key ingredients for successfully picking and implementing a SAM tool. This is also available as a PDF.

The Problem With ITAM – A short blog post after a conversation I had with a friend. This article highlights the issues from a personal perspective on what challenges are currently being faced by modern day ITAM professionals.

The Importance of Effective HAM – It is fact, you cannot successfully do Software asset Management without hardware asset management. This article explains the importance of managing hardware assets, and how you need the people, processes and tools in place to manage said assets, and how HAM impacts on SAM.

IT needs to reassess the meaning of compliancy for cloud – Computer Weekly reports that IT departments need to reassess the technology they deliver in identifying compliancy. The article states that 40% of cloud users admitted to using applications that have not been approved by their organisation. Another reason as to why SAM is needed with SaaS and Cloud based applications.

Other

The End User Review – The End User Review is our new feature that allows you to have your say on what are currently challenging you within ITAM. All submissions are anonymous, and will be posted in the form of an article. The aim is to give all of our readers an insight into challenges that other ITAM professionals are facing, so there is a feeling of community and other readers can provide advice and guidance. Please have your say and fill out the form!

Events

We announced our spring listings! We look forward to seeing as many of our readers as possible at the following events:

April

• 21st April [Berlin] Oracle Seminar [Register]
• 22nd April [Berlin] SAM Workshop hosted by Martin Thompson and David Foxen [Register]
• 28th April [London] IBM and SAP Seminar [Register]
• 29th April [London] SAM Workshop hosted by Martin Thompson and David Foxen [Register]

May

• 12th May [New York] Tools Day [Register]
• 13th May [New York] SAM Workshop hosted by Martin Thompson and David Foxen [Register]
• 14th May [New York] IBM and SAP Seminar [Register]
• 15th May [New York] Oracle Seminar [Register]