Competition heats up in SAM Managed Services market; SoftwareONE makes aggressive play for mid-market
Darryl Sackett, SoftwareOne
Competition in the SAM Managed Services market went up a few degrees this week when the software and services provider SoftwareONE made an aggressive play at market share in the mid-market with the launch of their “SAMSimple” offering.
In a nutshell: SAMSimple is a three-year SAM Managed Service contract, for three publishers, for a bonkers price.
Included are agent or agentless inventory, access to a hosted SAM tool (Flexera Software) as well as implementation and ongoing services. Customer output is compliance reports, licensing recommendations and audit support for their three chosen vendors.
Software publishers offered within the service include Microsoft, Opentext, VMware, Citrix, Symantec, McAffee, Veeam, Veritas, Adobe, Corel, Mindjet plus a few others.
This service won’t let you address all risk (No SAP, No Oracle, No IBM) – but for a few bucks per device per month any midmarket organization can make serious inroads into jump-starting their progress with SAM.
The service is specifically aimed at the mid-market 250 to 5,000 seats. For above 5,000 seats SoftwareONE will offer their normal customized SAM services. SoftwareONE featured in our SAM MSP Group Test back in 2015.
Commenting on the launch, Darryl Sackett, Global Director, Services Strategy, said:
“For less than the cost of a cup of coffee per device, SAMSimple offers customers an industry leading asset discovery, normalisation and license management engine. Additionally, the SAMSimple solution is 100% managed by SoftwareONE – from implementation to entitlement uploads to compliance reports to audit support. No more excuses!”
No more excuses indeed. This is clearly an aggressive grab at market share from SoftwareONE.
You have to question whether this would be a viable commercial move from an independent SAM services provider. As a software reseller, SoftwareONE has lots to gain beyond SAM for visibility of their customers estate.
However it is still a great opportunity for anyone struggling to get started. Maybe there have been a few false starts with tools, maybe there are not enough people in the team or the wrong expertise, and maybe this is the jolt that is needed to get things moving?
A bold and innovative move. If you are a SoftwareONE customer please leave an anonymous review on Tools Advisor so others may learn from your experiences.
http://www.toolsadvisor.net/tools/softwareone
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About Martin Thompson
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.