Automating license management and IT asset tracking

www.managesoft.com

How to reduce corporate risk, reduce asset management costs, and improve IT service levels

White paper

Table of contents

Business need for automated license management and IT asset tracking..............................3

IT business intelligence to analyze vast amounts of asset management data ........................4

Meeting the information needs of CIOs and IT managers..............................................5

Managing your licenses....................................................................................................6

Reduce risk exposure of potential license breaches ......................................................7

Identify hidden cost savings through identification of unused software ........................8

Negotiate ongoing license requirements ......................................................................9

Managing your IT assets ................................................................................................10

Plan for mergers and acquisitions ............................................................................11

Manage hardware leases effectively ..........................................................................11

Reduce costs with portfolio management ..................................................................12

Plan for hardware upgrades, OS refreshes, and server consolidation ............................12

Plan for a new ERP/ CRM rollout ............................................................................13

Improve IT service levels ........................................................................................14

Ongoing configuration management ................................................................................15

Conclusion ....................................................................................................................16

Find out more ........................................................................................................17

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Business need for automated license managementand IT asset trackingToday's IT manager is tasked with accounting for and optimizing investments in hardwareand software assets. With a dynamically changing, geographically dispersed workforce, andcorporate governance requirements, manual processes to track IT assets can be unacceptablytime consuming.

� Business risk exposure to audits & and true-ups — Many organizations are beginning topay the price for ineffective asset tracking as they struggle to reduce expenditure and costs.Software vendors are focusing on optimizing license revenue opportunities and, as a result,are randomly auditing customers1. Software vendors have been forced to become morestringent with regard to license compliance and it is not uncommon for an organization toreceive hefty fines for license breaches.

� Need for an accurate enterprise asset repository — It is vitally important thatorganizations maintain a central asset management repository to store information such ashardware inventory, lease information, usage of applications, license details, and financialinformation. This information is critical for efficient asset management, effectivenegotiation with vendors, accurate planning for upcoming projects, and for identifying andrecovering hidden potential asset savings.

� Manual processes are time-consuming — In a dynamically changing environment, it ischallenging and time-consuming to manually update the central asset repository every timea new PC is purchased, a hardware item changes (RAM upgrade) or a piece of software isinstalled or removed. Yet without regular updates the information in the central repositoryrapidly loses value as a useful reference.

� Manual processes are costly — Ensuring that asset data is always accurate and reliablerequires a lot of process and coordination between various groups. This effort, whilevaluable, can also be costly and involve thousands of man hours.

� Executive analysis and reporting requirements — While asset managers and ITadministrators have access to vast amounts of asset data, compelling management analysisof that data is critical to enable CIOs and other executives to make business-criticaldecisions, and to negotiate effectively with vendors. Up-to-date cost analysis, trendanalysis, geographic analysis, and compliance analysis with accessible graphical reportingare fundamental requirements.

As a result, organizations are turning to automated asset tracking, license management, andbusiness intelligence tools to reduce corporate risk, reduce asset management costs, andimprove IT service levels.

80% of the total cost ofownership of a PC isincurred after purchase.- Gartner

1 Gartner - IT Asset Management Tools, IT Asset Management and TCO Summit 2003,Patricia Adams

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IT business intelligence to analyze vast amountsof asset management dataIT management systems for asset management, license management, and configurationmanagement are able to collect large volumes of hardware data, software inventory data,application usage information, and configuration data. However, in its native form, this datais virtually un-useable. To deliver actionable information to drive business decisions this vastamount of day-to-day transactional data needs to be combined with cost data, aggregatedover time, extended with structural information, and analyzed for meaningful trends.

However, manual processes for achieving this goal are highly complex and often prohibitivelytime consuming. In order to make use of this enriched data it needs to be consolidated in aform that enables powerful aggregation, extensive automated analysis, and easy and flexiblequeries for ad-hoc analysis.

ManageSoft® IT Business Intelligence™ uses Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) to enablevast amounts of IT asset tracking data, software usage data, and license management data,and cost information, to be analyzed accurately and in real-time to deliver actionableinformation for CIO and IT executives. ManageSoft IT Business Intelligence providesextensive out-of-the box analysis for common asset management questions, and enables ITmanagers to perform easy ad-hoc analysis to drill down to the desired level of information,slice-and-dice IT asset management data from multiple sources, and analyze "what-if?"scenarios to make better business decisions.

This powerful automated analysis of vast amounts of up-to-the-minute asset tracking,software usage, and license management data enables IT executives to:

� Deliver instant answers to complex management questions.

� Proactively ensure license compliance to reduce business risk exposure.

� Manage hardware leases effectively.

� Budget accurately for hardware, software, OS upgrades, and proactively reduce ITasset costs.

� Negotiate effectively with hardware and software vendors to improve service levels andreduce costs.

� Proactively identify requirements or potential bottlenecks before they occur based onaccurate trend analysis, and 'traffic-light' reports to highlight approaching criticality levels.

� Rapidly assess the true value of hardware and software assets in organizational mergersand acquisitions.

� Drill-down from aggregated data analysis to increasing levels of detail to identify thecauses of identified business-critical IT developments.

“ManageSoft IT BusinessIngelligence is importantfor my team and theregional teams becauseit gives them bettervisibility into theenvironmentinfrastructure than theycurrently have.”- Jay Skibinski,Global CIO, Lend Lease

See IT Hero video interview at

www.managesoft.com/lendlease

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Meeting the information needs of CIOs and IT managers

ManageSoft IT Business Intelligence combines product ease-of-use, rapid response times,flexible querying, and powerful reporting to deliver the powerful simplicity that time-poorCIOs have been searching for to:

� Eliminate enterprise risks (to avoid punitive action, litigation etc.)

� Identify areas to reduce software related costs

� Negotiate license agreements

� Plan for mergers and acquisitions

� Prepare for asset lease renewal

� Analyze software, hardware or vendor portfolio

� Plan for hardware upgrades, OS refreshes, or server consolidation

� Plan for a new ERP/ CRM rollout

� Improve service levels.

Figure 1: ManageSoft IT Business Intelligence provides powerful automated analysis of softwareand hardware to improve IT decision-making

A detailed description of how to automate IT analysis to improve decision-making isprovided in the ManageSoft white paper: "Improving IT decision-making with IT businessintelligence".

“Since implementingManageSoft we’ve seensignificant benefits.We’ve been able toreceive a detailedinventory of the vast10,000 workstations, theversions of software, thelevel of patches, and anyother software installedon the machine.”- Kelli Crane,Senior Vice President &Chief Technology Officer,Thomson Prometric

See IT Hero video interview at

www.managesoft.com/prometric

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Managing your licensesWhile gathering vast amounts of data from your enterprise can be challenging, assimilatingthat data and transforming it into actionable information can be just as tedious.

License management is often a manual process in most enterprises, with information storedacross multiple departments, various spreadsheets, and a number of systems. With automatedlicense management, many of the previously manual tasks can be automated to ensure thatthe information on which you base your audits is accurate. Many organizations quitereasonably fear risk exposure of potential license breaches, and as a result often over-purchase on software licenses. Automated license management enables IT administrators tostore the number of licenses owned/ allocated for a given license agreement and thencompare this with the number actually in use. Efficient automated license managementenables IT administrators to:

� Ensure license compliance

� Identify hidden cost savings through reallocation of un-used and underutilizedsoftware licenses

� Plan for future license requirements based on accurate trend analysis

� Analyze an organization's portfolio of IT vendors

� Confidently negotiate vendor contracts for software licenses, support & maintenance.

ManageSoft provides a process-based approach to define license agreements, allocate licensesto various business units, automatically collect usage data, and analyze this data to ensurecompliance, manage costs, and easily harvest and reallocate licenses to meet businessrequirements.

Reduce risk exposure of potential license breaches

The importance of license compliance continues to gain increasing business visibility assoftware sales decline; causing software publishers to closely monitor enterprise applicationusage for license violations. The financial and reputation risk exposure posed by potentiallicense breaches are significant.

In order to ensure license compliance, organizations need to maintain data in a centralrepository with accurate details about contracts, software titles included in a license, softwarelicensing model, units purchased, units allocated, and units installed. Any discrepancybetween units purchased and units installed could potentially be interpreted as a licenseviolation.

Additionally, licenses should be centrally defined electronically and software installationinformation should be kept up to date and compared on a regular basis to the licensesowned.

In order to report accurately, an organization must link the license definition to a physicalsoftware title. A license definition may consist of one or more software titles. For example, atypical Microsoft enterprise agreement may consist of Microsoft SQL Server 2000, MicrosoftOffice 2000 Standard, Microsoft Access 2000 and Microsoft FrontPage 2000. If any of thesetitles are discovered on a device it should be counted as a single license instance of theEnterprise Agreement.

20% of softwarelicensing and hardwaremaintenance charges areincurred for assets nolonger in use.- Gartner2

2 Patricia Adams, “IT Asset Management Stages”, Gartner 2002

License price is just thebeginning. The real costsof technology includemany other factors- Aberdeen Group3

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Figure 2: ManageSoft enables you to customize your license definitions with powerful licensemanagement flexibility

ManageSoft provides the ability to:

� Define and customize license agreements

� Record license purchases, costs, software vendors, software publishers etc.

� Track allocations & sub-allocations of licenses across business units/ regions

� Measure and report on installed occurrences of the license

� Compare data to application usage data to determine action

During an audit, these reports are invaluable as it demonstrates your organization'scommitment to license compliance.

ManageSoft can also identify unauthorized/ illegal software installed in your enterprise,mapping this to a device and then to the employee using that device. Additionally,ManageSoft IT Business Intelligence can be configured to proactively send alerts to indicatethe occurrence of illegal software.

Figure 3: Track unauthorized and illegal software with automated analysis

3 “A better mousetrap for software deployment and MS Windows desktop configurationmanagement”, Aberdeen Group, 2003

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Identify hidden cost savings through identification of unused software

The ability to recover unused and underutilized licenses is key to any successful licensemanagement initiative. Without the ability to take action to recover and reallocate softwarelicenses ('harvesting'), organizations will not be able to recognize the full ROI of a licensemanagement system.

Even in the best-managed environments many organizations often find it challenging tomeasure if licensed software is being optimally used in the enterprise. Examples of wastedsoftware licenses are:

1. Device has software installed, but the user has never used it or does not know that itexists on the device.

2. Device was reassigned to a new user in a different role and software was neveruninstalled.

3. User leaves the company and the license was never returned to the pool forreallocation.

ManageSoft offers the ability to perform application usage monitoring to watch for under-utilized software. For a given application, ManageSoft can track:

� How long the application was running

� How long it was the foreground application

� The number of user sessions

� The employee using the application

� The specific device the application installed on

� And much more.

This information provides powerful insight to understand the value of unused and under-utilized software in the enterprise.

Figure 4: Automated license usage analysis to identify potential license savings

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

800

ExpiredActually usedInstalledLicensed

Savings of up to$480,000

Microsoft Office XP

“With ManageSoft wecan now understand whatthe licensing situation is,and can remotely removeunused software to freeup licenses.”- Tim Blanden,Technical Architect, IT Services, KPMG

See IT Hero video interview at

www.managesoft.com/kpmg

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Configuration management tools provide the ability act on this information by uninstallingsoftware and re-allocating the licenses to other users. Gartner recommends that"Configuration management tools must be used to enforce standardization and makemodifications needed for application upgrades or user role changes."4

ManageSoft provides the ability to define software policies within the directory service whichenables machines and/or users to be linked to a role or responsibility. Based on policy, thedevice is configured with the appropriate software for that role. If the machine/user changesrole then based on policy the machine is dynamically reconfigured, this means removal ofany software not applicable to this new role, and the addition of any software new to therole. This has the advantage of automatically reassigning and recovering licenses without theneed for manual administrator intervention.

Policy-based management of software also enables easy recovery of licenses that are notbeing used or are no longer required. By simply removing the user/ computer from thepolicy, the software is automatically removed from the device.

Negotiate ongoing license requirements

Understanding usage trends enables an organization to determine how many licenses will berequired on an ongoing basis; this is particularly useful when planning for future licensepurchases, negotiating license renewals or support agreements.

Figure 5: Negotiate effectively with vendors based on compelling, up-to-the minute analysis

Usage patterns of an application can provide insight into the actual license requirementswithin an organization to help negotiate better pricing for software maintenance/ supportcontracts. For example, you may have purchased 2500 licenses of an application and arepaying 25% of license costs on maintenance & support. However, application usagemonitoring can help identify that at any given time the peak usage is only 1000 units. Asa result, ongoing maintenance costs could be discounted.

4 Gartner Research Note - Five Steps to Stay Compliant With Your Software Licenses, Dec2003, P. Adams, R. Colville

“ManageSoft has givenus the ability to trackand control our licenseusage. With over 1,600licenses, ManageSoftputs us in a moreinformed position whenwe need to negotiatelicense contracts withvendors to bulk buysoftware, which reducescosts.”- Mark Ridge, Manager- IT Support Services, Edith Cowan University

See IT Hero video interview at

www.managesoft.com/ecu

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Managing your IT assets"How many devices does my organization own?" It may seem like a simple enough question,but it is a question that many organizations are simply unable to answer definitively. Andthis question is only one of many that organizations need to be able to answer in order toeffectively manage enterprise IT assets.

� What Operating System versions are we supporting? Windows? Linux? UNIX? Mac?Handheld?

� What is my PDA device brand distribution?

� Which devices are capable of being upgraded to Windows XP?

� Which business units/ regions require a major hardware upgrade?

� Which regions own the IBM laptops?

� Which devices are approaching low disk space?

Answering these questions enables IT managers to recognize cost savings when:

� Managing asset leases

� Planning and budgeting for IT projects

� Consolidating hardware and software assets

� Improving IT service levels.

Asset tracking is focused on automating the discovery of devices within a distributed networkinfrastructure and then performing a detailed inventory audit of the asset. The inventoryaudit provides information on the hardware configuration and what software is installed ofthe device.

ManageSoft provides two complementary approaches to IT asset tracking

� Once off inventory audit — For an initial zero-touch audit, ManageSoft provides a lowcost, entry solution which enables an organization to perform a once off audit of theenvironment without installing any agent software on end-user devices. This may be usedprior to implementation of an ongoing configuration management system

� Ongoing IT asset tracking — For ongoing up-to-the-minute tracking and analysis ofsoftware and hardware, ManageSoft provides ongoing automated and scheduled audits ofthe environment keeping the information up to date, using data uploaded by intelligentagents installed on end-user devices.

ManageSoft has the ability to track and manage enterprise assets such as desktops, laptops,servers, handheld devices on over 40 platforms including Windows, Linux, UNIX, Macintosh,Palm, Pocket PC, Windows SmartPhone, Symbian, and RIM.

Less than 30% of allenterprises with 5000+employees have an ITasset managementprocess- Gartner5

5 Patricia Adams, “IT Asset Management Stages”, Gartner 2002

Plan for mergers and acquisitions

Mergers and acquisitions usually come with their share of unknown IT assets, bringing in afleet of unknown infrastructure that has to be managed. ManageSoft can help organizationsget an accurate understanding of hardware and software assets that need to be managed,such as:

� discover domains from acquired companies

� identify IP subnets

� server consolidation

Figure 6: Discover hidden domains

This can drastically reduce the cost and time associated with a manual information gather.Once this information is gathered, IT departments have access to information and can helpthem becoming functional quicker.

Manage hardware leases effectively

Locating PCs at the end of lease can be both costly and time-consuming. Failure to findassets at the end of their lease can lead to hefty fees or the need to purchase the asset.

ManageSoft helps organizations proactively locate devices that are due to be returned tothe leasing company or identify devices that have not reported any activity in x-numberof weeks/ months. Automated analysis of missing computers with ManageSoft IT BusinessAnalysis enables Asset Managers to proactively identify missing devices and plancorrective action.

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“At one stage we weremerging with a newsmaller organizationevery three to fourweeks, adding furtherusers and workstations toour IT system, plus anarray of specializedsoftware. With each newmerger it is imperitive todiscover quickly whatsoftware is legallylicensed, what newsoftware is required and,where relevant, rapidlyimplement our global ITstandards. ManageSoftprovides a singleaccurate archiving andreporting environment totrack softwaredeployment, licensing,and IT assetsworldwide.”- Peter Nevin, InformationSystems Manager, Sinclair Knight Merz

Figure 7: Proactively identify missing computers

Reduce costs with portfolio management

ManageSoft can help you manage your software and hardware portfolio to support bettervendor relationship management. Vendor portfolio analysis can be used to identify frequentlyused vendors for software or hardware purchases. This information can be used to negotiatebetter pricing with vendors.

Figure 8: Automate hardware portfolio analysis

Plan for hardware upgrades, OS refreshes, and server consolidation

As an IT manager approaching a new project, such as an OS migration, you need to be ableto assess the current state of all your existing assets to plan for hardware upgrades. Forgeographically-dispersed environments, information needs to be assimilated from local andremote devices, including mobile employees on the road. However, for many organizationsthis exercise can be costly and time-consuming.

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Vendor portfolio analysiscan be used to identifyfrequently used vendorsfor software or hardwarepurchases.

For example, when planning for an OS migration, you need answers to a range of questionsabout the status of existing resources, such as:

� Do devices possess the recommended processor speed, RAM, and disk space to run thenew operating system?

� What peripherals-keyboards, mice, printers, external storage, or other devices-are in use?

� What percentage of existing PCs can support the new operating system? What percentageof devices require a hardware upgrade to support the new operating system.

� What percentage of assets are of a hardware model that is no longer supported?

� Identify software that can be dropped from the enterprise software portfolio to reducecosts?

ManageSoft provides a comprehensive solution, delivering this analysis out-of-the-box toenable IT managers to quickly and reliably understand the state of their IT assets, to use thisto plan and budget for upcoming projects, and to improve IT decision-making.

Figure 9: Plan IT projects with up-to-the-minute hardware assessment

Plan for a new ERP/ CRM rollout

Prior to rolling out any new software, it is often necessary to understand the hardware andsoftware configurations of the target environment as this will ultimately determine thesuccess of the rollout and the end-users' experience.

For example, rolling out a new CRM application or even an upgrade to an existing applicationmay require a set of pre-requisite criteria to be met, such as:

� Pre-requisite browser versions (for web-based applications)

� Pre-requisite runtimes

� Minimum hardware requirements, such as Operating System, free disk space, RAM,Processor speed, and more.

ManageSoft enables IT administrators to plan effectively for a rollout of a business-criticalapplication. Access to this information prior to the rollout can save time in trouble-shootingand disaster recovery and ensure that the rollout is successful.

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ManageSoft enables ITadministrators to planeffectively for a rolloutof a business-criticalapplication.

Figure 10: Perform rapid ad-hoc queries to assist decision-making

Improve IT service levels

Access to reports indicating configuration of a user's PC can be extremely useful to the helpdesk when trouble-shooting a problem. Access to asset tracking data can help with quickercall resolution and if implemented properly, reduction in inbound call volume. For example, auser may have installed gaming software on their computer which has caused a conflict witha business application. ManageSoft provides asset inventory information that enables helpdesk administrators to easily drill down and remotely view the hardware configuration and allsoftware installed on a computer, for quicker helpdesk call resolution.

Figure 11: Drill down to detailed inventory for an individual device

A detailed description of how ManageSoft improves IT service levels for remote offices isprovided in the ManageSoft white paper: "Improving IT service levels for remote offices".

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“With ManageSoft, if anissue arises we’re notwasting time on routineissues or guessing what’sloaded on each machine.We know which updateshave been applied andwe can respond faster.”- John Fanara, ApplicationSupport Manager,Goodwin Procter

Ongoing configuration managementBy their very nature, asset tracking tools are designed to monitor and report on IT assets in adynamic business environment. Most tools, however, do not provide a framework to takeaction on the data obtained from an asset tracking initiative. Configuration managementtools, by contrast, are inherently able to take action and report on their status. ManageSoftsoftware management solutions provide ongoing configuration management for desktops,servers, and mobile devices, automating:

� Software deployment

� Security patch management

� Server management

� IT asset tracking

� License management

� Mobile management

� OS migration

� All with integrated analysis with ManageSoft IT Business Intelligence.

For example, an asset tracking tool might indicate that for an expensive graphics designapplication, more licenses are owned than are actually being regularly used in Massachusetts.However, the same application is being grossly over-used in the California office. Unlikepoint-solution asset tracking tools, ManageSoft enables you to seamlessly uninstall softwarefrom Massachusetts and automatically install the software for the Californian users. And thenprovide reports to indicate the status of the job.

ManageSoft provides complete IT lifecycle management for desktops, servers and mobiledevices across the enterprise, enabling you to have continuous control over all your IT assets,throughout the full IT asset lifecycle from initial procurement to eventual retirement.

A detailed description of how to automate ongoing configuration management is providedin the ManageSoft white paper: "Automating software and hardware management".

Figure 12: Manage every stage of the IT asset lifecycle with ManageSoft

ManageSoft providescomplete IT lifecyclemanagement fordesktops, servers andmobile devices acrossthe enterprise.

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ConclusionIt is vitally important to be able to:

1. Monitor and analyze asset data

2. Automate intelligent analysis of this data to support asset management decisionmaking

3. Take action based on that analysis to improve IT service levels, ensure compliance,and proactively reduce costs.

ManageSoft is the only way to manage the complete lifecycle of your IT assets. ManageSoft®is a fast and powerful license management, software usage metering, and IT asset trackingsolution for fixed and mobile devices located anywhere in the world. ManageSoft® ITBusiness Intelligence™ extends these powerful real-time capabilities to also provide trendanalysis over time, cost analysis, portfolio analysis, and detailed software usage analysis,with graphical reporting, intelligent license utilization forecasts, and proactive compliancereports and alerts. This powerful automated analysis enables IT professionals to improve ITdecision-making, and proactively reduce IT costs.

� Get a fast initial inventory audit to put you back in control — Unlike large heavy-weight license compliance and inventory tools, ManageSoft can provide a fast, zero-touchinitial inventory audit for software and hardware on devices throughout an organization.It's a powerful solution to meet a short-term need like a forthcoming license negotiation.

� Automate ongoing asset tracking for ongoing savings — For ongoing IT asset tracking,ManageSoft wipes out costly and time-consuming site visits, with up-to-the-minuteenterprise inventory analysis for software and hardware assets throughout an organization.Unlike 'download-and-run-once' tools, ManageSoft stores the specific details of your licenseagreements (license type, renewal dates, costs, purchase order numbers, vendor details,and more) for ongoing up-to-the-minute automated compliance tracking and usagemetering.

� Plan hardware upgrades based on accurate hardware and cost analysis — ManageSoftIT Business Intelligence provides automated cost analysis and trend analysis for hardwareinventory, available disk space, operating systems in use, installed memory, andconfiguration changes over time, with intuitive graphical reporting.

� Manage licenses across multiple business units — See what software is installed where,and how often it is actually used. ManageSoft makes it easy to allocate and managesoftware licenses across multiple organizational units, ensure license compliance, monitorsoftware usage, and harvest unused licenses.

� Proactively reduce software license costs — Harvest unused licenses and confidentlynegotiate license agreements with graphical usage analysis, license compliance analysis,and license utilization forecasts.

� Avoid unnecessary replacement costs and late fees for missing leased computers —See at-a-glance "overdue" computers that haven't connected to the network within adefined period of time.

ManageSoft is the onlyway to manage thecomplete lifecycle ofyour IT assets. Powerfulautomated analysisenables IT professionalsto improve IT decision-making, and proactivelyreduce IT costs.

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Figure 13: Manage software management solutions

Find out more

Find out more about how ManageSoft enables you automate license management and ITasset tracking.

� Telephone your nearest ManageSoft office to discuss your requirements or request aproduct demonstration

� Visit www.managesoft.com to view online multimedia demonstrations, or to register fora seminar

� Request an in-house proof-of-concept to see how ManageSoft can meet your particularrequirements.

www.managesoft.com

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Copyright © 2004 ManageSoft Corp(ABN 40 052 412 156) All rights reserved.ManageSoft, The Software ManagementCompany, and the ManageSoft logo aretrademarks or registered trademarks ofManageSoft Corporation. All othercompany names and technology/productnames are the property of their respectiveowners. Printed 10/2004. MGS7-TWP4051.