Dive Brief:
- Software license management gaps cost companies millions in auditing expenses each year, according to a joint study by open source Java platform Azul and the ITAM Forum published last week. The two organizations commissioned Dimensional Research to survey 500 IT and software management professionals.
- More than one-quarter of respondents said their organization spends between $100,000 and $500,000 a year resolving software license compliance issues. Nearly three-quarters of organizations surveyed reported a Java audit by Oracle in the last three years.
- “The results highlight a fundamental mismatch between the complexity of modern software licensing and the resources organizations rely on to effectively manage software compliance,” Martin Thompson, founder of the ITAM Forum, a not-for-profit industry group, said in a press release. “Poor license management can result in significant financial penalties and operational disruptions.”
Dive Insight:
As cloud-based software piles on to existing on-premises deployments, IT asset management teams face a growing mountain of vendor contracts with steep non-compliance penalties. Simply tracking usage across hybrid estates poses ITAM challenges.
Most organizations — 74% — handle license discovery and internal audits either mostly or entirely in-house, according to Azul. More than one-third of respondents point to licensing discovery and compliance as top issues facing their organization. Managing subscription services and preparing for audits were two additional pain points cited in the survey.
“The increasing complexity of vendor licensing and pricing has turned routine upkeep into recurring six-figure compliance exercises,” Scott Sellers, co-founder and CEO of Azul, said in a release. “Organizations shouldn’t have to burn ITAM resources, interrupt projects or absorb surprise penalties just to run their applications.”
Even minor oversights can risk costly and disruptive audits.
One-quarter of respondents said their organization spent between $50,000 and $100,000 resolving software non-compliance issues, while licensing issues cost 17% of surveyed organizations up to $1 million.
Java, which celebrated its 30th anniversary earlier this year, remains embedded in enterprise software as a go-to coding building block for web, cloud and now AI applications. Nearly 7 in 10 of 2,000-plus developers surveyed by Dimensional Research for a January Azul report said Java runs more than half their organization’s apps. Half of respondents were building AI apps in Java.
Oracle acquired Java when it closed on its purchase of Sun Microsystems in 2010. The cloud vendor made Java 24 generally available with support services via enterprise subscriptions in March. The next version, Java 25, which will have long-term support packages, is set to roll out in September, according to Oracle.
Enterprises can also deploy the coding platform for less cost under open-source licensing and many have chosen that path, according to Azul. Nearly 4 in 5 Java users are migrating to open-source versions, the survey found. Security, reliability, cost and compliance were the primary reasons cited for the shift.
The overall cost and complexity of enterprise software estates helped catalyze a formal alliance between the ITAM Forum and the FinOps Foundation last month. The two groups are aiming to integrate cloud spend management practices developed by FinOps teams with software cost and licensing compliance expertise native to ITAM.
