I recall a conversation many years ago with Sumir Karayi, the then CEO of 1E. AppClarity, 1E’s SAM solution had just been released and we were chatting around what I thought of the product. In that conversation I recall telling Sumir that I thought AppClarity was the killer app, on reflection, I think I may have been mistaken, it was a particular component of the solution that made it so compelling.
Software is so prevalent in our everyday lives that we come into contact with it almost continuously, be it the mobile phone you are using, the smart TV you are watching, the smart appliance you are interacting with or the desktop or laptop you are using to perform your job function. Software is basically everywhere.
Software is also very accessible. The internet brought with it digital freedom and the software vendors have used this digital freedom to entice people to use their software through easily available downloads, whether “free” or not. In a not dissimilar way, this concept has been replicated behind the corporate firewall where vendors have signed enterprise agreements that allow organisation the ubiquitous use of their software across almost every device. If you install it you pay for it. Be this on premises or cloud base, whether used or not, software vendors are enticing your users to get their software, ultimately it is how they make their money.
With so much software out there, with so many vendors, titles, versions, cloud/non cloud etc, managing this environment has become ever more challenging, despite the undisputed value that the majority of software brings to organizations. However, with greater freedom, definitely comes the requirement for greater control. Software sprawl or software bloat is an ever-increasing problem and many organizations pay licensing for software that is not actually being used or providing little to no business value. This is untapped cost savings for most organizations.
Going back to my conversation with Sumir, the killer app was actually what 1E refer to as Software Reclaim. This is an engine that identifies software versioning, surfaces the usage of software and using a policy-based approach, allows organizations to dynamically uninstall software that is not being used. You can do this with either an interactive pop up or a silent install behind the scenes with zero impact to the end user, pretty cool tech to be fair.
Research in the past indicated that as much as 38% of software in an organization is unused or rarely used and despite the onset of many cloud solutions, I don’t think this needle has moved significantly.
Software Reclaim is still the killer app and now part of 1E’s enterprise platform. If there is ever a product feature that is a no brainer and provides instant ROI, this is it.