The ITAM Review

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2016 SAM Tools Universe

I am pleased to announce the publication of our ‘2016 SAM Tools Universe‘ report, an independent assessment of leading SAM tools for large enterprises.

It has taken us the best part of eight months to compile the research, sorry for the delay. Starting in February and originally planned for a June 2016 publication, the project was delayed due to a) the limited time of the vendors participating, b) The competition being incredibly close and having to reissue new criteria mid-way through the process and c) the volume of other stuff going on at ITAM Review towers.

We used market share, competitive differentiators and customer satisfaction scores to assess participating vendors. The end result is a competitive comparison of the leading SAM tools for large enterprises:

The SAM Tools Universe report is designed to provide readers of The ITAM Review an independent assessment of the market for SAM tools for large enterprises.

Our goal is to provide an independent review and comparison of the market leaders, identify key competitive differentiators between tools and observe where the market is heading.

ITAM professionals should use this report, as supporting material to help in the tool selection process, to help them understand the key strengths and weaknesses of tools, understand the where the market is innovating and highlight capabilities they might not have considered.

Assessment Criteria

Participants were scored against The ITAM Review’s 71-Point RFI criteria (Included in the report), covering six core capabilities:

SAM Tools Universe

Assessment criteria and weighting for the SAM Tools Universe

Participants

Participating vendors in the final report were as follows:

  • Aspera SmartTrack 4.1
  • Brainware Spider 6.3 & Columbus 7.4.1
  • Concorde Core Control 11
  • Eracent IT Management Center 10.1.78
  • Flexera Software FlexNet Manager Suite 2015 R2
  • HPE HPE Universal CMDB with Universal Discovery 10.2 & HPE Asset Manager 9.50
  • LANDESK ITAM Suite 2016.1
  • Snow Software License Manager 8.0

Note: Vendors did not pay to participate in this report. This is independent and impartial research for ITAM Review readers to aid their tool selection process.

About Martin Thompson

Martin is owner and founder of The ITAM Review, an online resource for worldwide ITAM professionals. The ITAM Review is best known for its weekly newsletter of all the latest industry updates, LISA training platform, Excellence Awards and conferences in UK, USA and Australia.

Martin is also the founder of ITAM Forum, a not-for-profit trade body for the ITAM industry created to raise the profile of the profession and bring an organisational certification to market. On a voluntary basis Martin is a contributor to ISO WG21 which develops the ITAM International Standard ISO/IEC 19770.

He is also the author of the book "Practical ITAM - The essential guide for IT Asset Managers", a book that describes how to get started and make a difference in the field of IT Asset Management. In addition, Martin developed the PITAM training course and certification.

Prior to founding the ITAM Review in 2008 Martin worked for Centennial Software (Ivanti), Silicon Graphics, CA Technologies and Computer 2000 (Tech Data).

When not working, Martin likes to Ski, Hike, Motorbike and spend time with his young family.

Connect with Martin on LinkedIn.

One Comment

  1. Question from a couple of readers:

    Why wasn’t Sassafras included in the SAM tool universe?

    The SAM Tools Universe was focussed on SAM for large enterprises. Covering from desktop to datacentre. Sassafras has, traditionally at least, had a desktop SAM focus. Only relatively recently has it begun to address datacentre SAM requirements e.g. PVU was added in summer of 2016 https://www.sassafras.com/datacenter-sam-7-4/

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