Round Up!

Cattle Dog's Future

2007-02-09T13:50:00.000+11:00

It is with some regret that I must announce that Cattle Dog Pty Ltd will no longer be offering IT/Software Asset Management services or products for sale in Australia. The business has not had the success we would have liked it to have, and of necessity have had to pursue opportunities outside of it.

Anthony has gone on to work with Microsoft's licensing division, and we wish him the best of luck.

Yolanda and Måns worked with us part-time, and have more time now for other opportunities.

Christine and myself are taking on contract roles, currently I am working at a large investment bank.

Do your software licenses make you a vendor-slave?

2006-08-09T16:46:00.000+10:00

Techdirt has an interesting post tying together two separate stories that point out some of the more critical gotchas in software licensing.

“In both cases, the companies providing the licenses recognized (correctly) that this allowed them a tremendous amount of leverage in any future contract negotiation, since they could (literally, in some cases) lock up their customers' most important assets. For companies buying technology products who think things like the details of intellectual property law and licenses don't matter, perhaps these stories will make them a little more aware of a few of the reasons why it's important to understand what you license and what you own -- and recognizing that you never want to trust your most important assets to an outside vendor.”

In one story an automated parking station lost the ability to move customers' cars around, and in the other a health service provider lost access to patient data.

On a sidenote, does your BCP take account of the potential effect of your software vendors not being available to renew/replace your software license keys should a disaster cause you to move to a new location?

New License Report Service

2006-03-25T11:36:00.000+11:00

One of the new services we are now offering is an on-site appraisal of how well your organisation is managing software licenses. Many executives and directors are aware that they need to comply with the terms of their software licenses or face possible criminal charges, but have not yet taken the steps required to ensure compliance and properly manage the risks and costs involved.

Our on-site appraisal of your license management processes and controls, allows us to identify potential areas of non-compliance risk, and benchmark your organisation against current best practices. We are offering this analysis and written report to our clients for only $880.

For more information check our new license report page.

del.icio.us tags:

OffTopic: Don't trust vendors

2006-03-06T12:09:00.000+11:00

Iain Ferguson blogs that corporate IT should not trust vendors' use of new terms such as Business Intelligence (BI). Few IT people would be surprised by this, the dilution of many terms through use in marketing hype is well known. Terms that are commonly recognised as diluted include; Business Intelligence (BI), Knowledge Management (KM), Self Healing, 360 degree view of your customer and Customer Relationship Management (CRM).

In many cases terms are diluted to help mutton dress up as lamb. A document storage solution is declared to offer first document management, and then as sales dry up, it is spruiked as knowledge management (perhaps with the addition of a few more meta tags). This rebirthing of old solutions is sometimes an interim measure as the vendor comes up with a real knowledge management solution, but more often than not it is simply marketers jumping on the latest buzzword bandwagon.

Sounds harmless, right? Well it would be, if it was not used to avoid actually delivering what the customer really wanted. As Iain points out:

Your writer wonders how many customers have been suckered over the past few years into thinking they were implementing a BI solution when they were actually getting a rebranded query and reporting toolset.

It’s a sad fact of life that ICT suppliers are desperately eager to coin new terms and shamelessly redefine them as they go in an effort to shift more equipment or services.

The IT/Software Asset Management (IT/SAM) industry is as guilty of this as any, the use of the term Self Healing being a good example of hype in action (it usually just means the automatic application of software patches).

The whole ethos of Cattle Dog is opposed to this sort of buzzword claiming, yet I'm sure there is some of our marketing material that may claim association with buzzwords unnecessarily. If you doubt something we say in our marketing material, please mention it to me at angus@cattle-dog.com.au.

Angus McDonald
Principal, Cattle Dog Pty Ltd

del.icio.us tags:

del.icio.us

2006-03-03T16:35:00.000+11:00

We've been updating the Round Up! blog recently, and one of the niftier features we've added is categorising our posts using del.icio.us tags. Each post is tagged with one or more single word tags, and added to our del.icio.us list, which automatically gives us the green list of tags in the right-hand column.

The "Best of Round Up!" links will remain as a way of highlighting important information that might not be amongst our more popular tags. However, the tags menu will allow you to quickly find related posts and filter for those posts that you are really interested in.

del.icio.us tags:

Software Watchdog Ups the Ante in Fight Against Piracy

2006-03-03T07:38:00.000+11:00

The BSA has just announced that they will increase their maximum reward amount up to US$200,000*. From their press release:

“BSA is escalating its efforts to curtail software piracy,” said Jenny Blank, BSA’s director of enforcement. “While there have been major advances in the fight against software piracy, it remains a very real, very serious problem. The BSA Rewards Program provides an extra incentive to people to do the right thing and report software piracy confidentially.”

One of the things that Jim Macnamara mentioned in his interview with me was that Australia needed to get more serious about fighting business software piracy. I would add that we need to start by fighting games software piracy, as the young consumer of pirated games will more than likely grow up to become a business or IT leader that does not respect software licenses.

There is no indication that the BSAA intends to increase its' maximum reward from $5,000, but I wonder what would be the result if they did? Given that most organisations are reported by ex-employees from their IT department, you would have to wonder if some of our larger companies might suddenly get very nervous ...

* Note: The BSA has a sliding reward scale, so this would only be paid out if the settlement/damages awarded was in excess of US$2,000,000. See their reward conditions for more details.

del.icio.us tags:

BSAA Web Update

2006-02-27T11:57:00.000+11:00

It looks like the BSAA has gotten themselves an update of their website, courtesy of FullSite (hint: guys, you really should not go live on a client's website on your own domain ...).

The big news is the introduction of their "Ask Sam" section, using a cartoon figure to represent "a synthesis of knowledge and experience from professionals involved in creating successful software asset management strategies". The BSAA is taking a leaf out of the BSA UK book here, as they have had their own Just Ask Sam website for a while now.

However, it seems we might be more conservative in Australia as our Sam dresses in a suit, whilst the guy in the Uk has a more typical IT guy's polo shirt and slacks on, their haircuts are noticeably different too:

What do you think? Is SAM a business issue or an IT one?

del.icio.us tags:

My Squidoo Lens on Software Asset Management

2006-02-24T00:33:00.000+11:00

I've just created a Squidoo lens about Software Asset Management. The idea with Squidoo is to create an enduring resource on a particular subject for others to use. It has some similarities with the idea of a Wiki, except if you think you have a better idea than someone else you create your own page rather than argue over the page they created. This lense will show you some of the blogs I read when thinking about IT/SAM and some of the great resources that are out there for IT managers and business leaders alike.

Other notable Squidoo lenses include starting and running a web business by Nik Cubrilovic and How to Learn About Business Without Spending a Fortune: The Personal MBA (sorry, I just had to leave the capitals in for that one) by Josh Kaufmann.

Nik is from Wollongong, a modest hometown, but might eventually be famous for his highly regarded startup Omnidrive, which offers an innovative hosted storage solution. Based on the rave reviews he's had from Techcrunch he is well placed to comment on starting a web business.

Josh works for Procter & Gamble doing marketing stuff, but is more famous for coming up with the Personal MBA manifesto at ChangeThis. He doesn't actually have an MBA as yet, or even a ton of worldly experience to draw upon, but he does have a good handle on 'worldly wisdom'.

del.icio.us tags:

Are you sure those desktops are locked down?

2006-02-12T23:36:00.000+11:00

Frequently IT adminstrators tell me they don't need to track software usage; every computer only has the software it is licensed for, and users have been denied local administrator privileges, so they can't install anything new. Administrator nirvana results, right?

Well, reality check time, Lifehacker, a personal productivity site has an article telling people how Survive IT lockdown. Your users have probably already read this advice, or something similar ... still feeling so confident?

More to the point, any IT administrator that simplifies his job, by placing unnecessary restrictions on users is not doing his job. Your average knowledge worker deals with more high technology outside the office in a week than they will at the office in a year. Just have a look at the gadgets they carry with them to work - iPods, USB keyrings, Bluetooth connected phones and headsets - and they probably have a lot more built around the multimedia workstation they have connected to the plasma screen at home, not to mention the online Web2.0 tools they might be into if they blog, podcast or belong to one of the millions of online communities.

Forcing corporate users to downgrade when they come into work is a waste of their technical savvy ... work with them, rather than against them, and see what they can really do for your company's bottom-line. Sure you need safety nets, and that's where running something like Snow's Software Asset Management (SAM) suite can really help. The Snow Metering tool will help your administrators monitor application usage (regardless of whether it was installed or run off a USB keyring) and provide the ability to deny access for file-sharing or other applications you regars as too dangerous/antisocial to allow in your workplace.

del.icio.us tags:

Interview: Jim Macnamara, BSAA (Part 1/3)

2006-01-17T20:48:00.000+11:00

Jim Macnamara doesn't want you to think he's out to get you ... no really, he doesn't. As Chairman of the Business Software Association of Australia (BSAA), he points out that “eighty to ninety percent of our activity is focused on education, and what we call 'management assistance', which is promoting tools and strategies for things such as SAM, and focussing on software as assets that need to be managed in an organised way.”

The BSAA has a reputation of being the “software police” in Australia, with headlines like “Software: Pirate hunters swoop” and “Copyright: No longer a soft touch”, reinforcing this negative perception. Their submissions during the drafting of the recent AUSFTA also helped highlight their interest in protecting the commercial goals of software vendors.

Directors and other senior executives must realise that it is they who are responsible for the proper use of information and communication technology.

Jim points out that if the BSAA had been intended to be purely software police, then they would have chosen a lawyer, rather than a communications consultant for the role. However, from the very first meeting it was decided that communication and education should be a major part of the BSAA's role. Jim should know, he attended the first BSAA meeting in 1989 and has been the Chairman ever since. But he is not just involved because of his communications experience, he is also CEO of a computer-aided research company with over 30 employees, several software products and a publishing arm.

As someone who has written books and developed software programs Jim's firsthand experience of the importance of intellectual property issues such as software licensing means he has a legitimate interest in seeing intellectual property protected, especially copyright.

While the recent changes to the Copyright Act 1968 (due to the AUSFTA) can be seen as aimed at rogue IT managers, Jim says “the real message is for company directors.” Indeed he says they “often find that IT managers are struggling because they are endeavouring to implement systems, but there is not a recognition above them, at senior management level, that these things need to be managed.”

Indeed the BSAA has tried to get the message out, even going so far as to organise an AICD Director's Briefing (Software: Is your business breaking the law?) for October last year, to educate company directors as to the ramifications of the recent changes to the Copyright Act. It was not a pure BSAA event, independent experts were presenting and company directors that had experienced the benefits of software asset management (SAM) firsthand, were available to answer questions. The briefing would have helped raise the awareness amongst company directors of the seriousness of the changes, yet it was cancelled because of a complete lack of interest!

“if you’re not managing these assets, then human nature is such that someone in your organisation is probably copying illegally, that’s just human nature, it occurs through mistakes, it occurs through ignorance.”

I asked Jim what he saw as the reason for this response from company directors. “Perhaps this reflects that SAM, or ITAM, is not on the radar of company directors and senior management, they see this as an IT responsibility, but IT can only manage it if they have the responsibility, resources and budget to do that. That has to come from senior management.”

Many might argue that their organisation is not involved in illegal software use, either due to the professionalism of their IT staff, or the integrity of their business leaders, and so a formal SAM program is unnecessary. Jim sees it differently, “if you’re not managing these assets, then human nature is such that someone in your organisation is probably copying illegally, that’s just human nature, it occurs through mistakes, it occurs through ignorance.” The bottom line is that “if you don’t have [controls and mechanisms] there’s a 90% chance we believe that you’ll have unlicensed software and if you leave it for a long time that will accumulate and you’re probably risking at least civil action, and potentially criminal action against the company’s directors.”

Policing and enforcement of the new Copyright Act is something I will cover in more detail in the third part of my interview with Jim, but we discussed the fact that criminal prosecution is only likely in the most serious of cases. In that case, it is almost certain that a company director would be facing criminal charges, and the sort of humiliation the directors of HIH faced when their financial shenanigans were made public. Depending upon the situation, it would certainly affect a company's share price, and possible even deal a fatal blow to the market's trust in that organisation.

Jim is quick to stress that there are important positive effects of implementing SAM. Companies that have implemented SAM have experienced reduced costs associated with:

Reduced need to support desktops that have often had non-standard (sometimes cracked) applications installed

Lower internet usage due to fewer internet radio and filesharing downloads.

Improved productivity due to the removal of unwanted games and entertainment software.

Lower software license costs due to a better understanding of what the business actually requires.

Better negotiating position with major software vendors.

There are also security considerations when not tracking installed and used software. Jim points out that “if you don’t use software asset management it’s like leaving the back-door of your business open electronically.” As IT security has become a much more important topic today than even just a few years ago, companies are finding that implementing a proper SAM program also gives them a better handle on the security threats they face, and allows them to remove security weaknesses created by improperly configured or installed software, and bad user habits.

That wraps up this first part of the my interview with Jim Macnamara, in the second part I will cover the negative effect that a high piracy rate has on local software developers.

The BSAA is not alone in assigning the responsibility for software licensing to company directors and senior officers. Recent standards also highlight the importance of IT assets to business in general.

The new AASB 3 accounting standard is seen as highlighting the need to identify intangible assets such as software licenses (even if not seperable) into corporate balance sheets. That means the CFO needs to know exactly what software licenses the business is party to so that they can be accounted for properly.

Australian Standard AS 8015 (released in March 2005), which deals with Information and Computer Technology (ICT) Governance places the burden squarely upon the business rather than the computer department:

Directors and other senior executives must realise that it is they who are responsible for the proper use of information and communication technology. It is they who should set the direction for the ICT specialists. They allocate the resources that are needed for ICT; they check to see if ICT is providing what the organisation needs and they provide the leadership that is so necessary for the successful introduction of changes to business practices brought about by ICT initiatives. If senior business officers do not do their job then the ICT specialists cannot do theirs.

AS 8015 outlines six principles, two of which directly relate to IT/software asset management (IT/SAM):

Acquire ICT validly
* ensure that ICT acquisitions are made for the right reasons in the right way; on the basis of appropriate and ongoing analysis

Ensure ICT conforms
* ensure that ICT conforms to all external regulations and complies with all internal policies and practices

Clearly this is an issue that business leaders need to take seriously. If you would like to talk about how you can ensure your organisation is properly managing software licenses, then feel free to contact us for a free* diagnostic session.

* Mention this blog post to get the diagnostic session at no charge.

del.icio.us tags:

Negotiating the Software License: Eight Tips for the Licensee

2006-01-11T21:28:00.000+11:00

From the American Law Institute - American Bar Association website comes eight tips on negotiating software licenses. In summary they are:

Pay attention to the licensing agreement.

Get vendor agreements in writing.

Get the right kind of license grant.

Escrow source codes.

Negotiate favourable payment terms.

Insist on acceptance testing.

Get useful warranties.

Negotiate less restrictive damage limitations.

If you want more tips on negotiating with vendors, check out the Microsoft Secrets I posted about last year.

del.icio.us tags:

Interview: Jim Macnamara, BSAA (Preview)

2006-01-11T19:02:00.000+11:00

There is lots of interesting new material coming up on the Round Up! I spent some time today interviewing Jim Macnamara, the chairman of the Business Software Alliance of Australia (BSAA).

We covered a lot of ground, so it will probably end up being a few posts, but three main themes stood out:

The important role of company directors in software asset management.

The tremendous negative effect of software piracy on local IT developers.

The need for visible enforcement of the recent changes in the Copyright Act.

That last point is especially interesting, the Australian Federal Police (AFP) are ostensibly responsible for policing criminal breaches of the Copyright Act, but the lists of crimes they are interested in on their website fails to mention software piracy, or other criminal copyright infringements (their website might just be out of date, but by a full year?!). I am seeking more information from the AFP to include in that post, but if you have been involved in such an investigation, or know someone who has, then I would be interested in hearing your story.

del.icio.us tags:

Software Raids: Surviving an Audit

2006-01-04T11:26:00.000+11:00

Scott Braden has some more great advice regarding how to survive a software audit in Redmond magazine. His advice is of course centered on the risks and costs for American organisations, but most of it is just as applicable to Australian organisations. He gives three main reasons for caring about software license compliance:

The business should not be held hostage by software license non-compliance, so regular reports that prove your software license compliance should become part of the regular toolkit of the CFO.

First, your risk of audit is increasing, says Scott, who has seen his caseload double over the past year. “Shrinking IT budgets and fierce competition among software publishers have created explosive growth in the incidence and frequency of software audits.”

In fact, Gartner Inc. estimates that 40 percent of all midsize to large U.S. businesses will face external software audits by the end of 2006.

In addition, Sarbanes-Oxley auditors are catching on to software non-compliance. In the parlance, software non-compliance is what’s known as an “off balance sheet” liability. The logic goes like this: if your company has software non-compliance, there is a negative value associated with the risk of getting caught, paying fines and so on. So in the auditor’s view, your company has a liability -- a liability to the corporation that’s not shown on any balance sheet or other public SEC filings. If that phrase “off balance sheet liability” sounds familiar, it’s because a company called Enron got in trouble for hiding liabilities “off balance sheet.”

Second, good old ROI will improve. Software compliance projects routinely have enormous hard-dollar cost savings associated with them. When you have the tools and processes to keep tight control of your licenses and usage, you also have increased negotiation leverage with vendors, and the ability to avoid purchases by re-allocating existing licenses (see “SOX and the Single Admin” for a few handy software compliance shortcuts).

Finally (but not least importantly), you avoid the risk of penalties or jail time. Ask yourself, “Whose job is it to make sure we stay compliant?” And, “Who gets fired if we’re not compliant?”

Scott also shows how useful a good IT/SAM tool can be in performing a quick software inventory:

Good tools can be a lifesaver in these situations, as Carpenter found out. “In our case, they were expecting [the requested audit information] to take about a month and seemed surprised when we turned it around in a week. [Intel’s] LANDesk was a timesaver and the accuracy held up. Having good, available numbers on demand is probably the greatest thing.”

For comparison, our Snow Inventory tool was recently deployed to over 2,500 client PCs in half a day. With that sort of speed of deployment you can get an inventory report that shows exactly what is on each machine within a day! Have another tool you want to use long-term? Well, with the one-time scan license (OTSL) you can get an affordable version of our inventory solution that will give you a fast one-off audit of each of your PCs, and then take your time to rollout whatever solution you desire long-term.

However, a reactive solution is not really the best option. The bottom-line is that an ongoing IT/software asset management (IT/SAM) solution is a necessary part of your corporate governance infrastructure. The business should not be held hostage by software license non-compliance, so regular reports that prove your software license compliance should become part of the regular toolkit of the CFO. In that way the person who is most affected by the costs of non-compliance, and is best able to allocate resources to solve a compliance problem is also the person who gets the regular reports.

Note: In Australia using illegal software for commercial purposes carries a risk of a AUD$467,500 fine and a jail term of up to 5 years (see our Changes to Copyright Act post for more details).

del.icio.us tags:

Off-Topic: Outwitting Biometric Fingerprint Scanners

2006-01-03T17:03:00.000+11:00

How do you outwit fingerprint scanners? In the movies it usually involves messy removal of digits, but associate professor Stephanie C. Schuckers at Clarkson University reckons all you need is Play-Doh fingers. That's good news for hackers looking to outwit security systems, and bad news for people relying upon them.

Fingerprint scanning devices often use basic technology, such as an optical camera that take pictures of fingerprints which are then "read" by a computer. In order to assess how vulnerable the scanners are to spoofing, Schuckers and her research team made casts from live fingers using dental materials and used Play-Doh to create molds. They also assembled a collection of cadaver fingers.

In the laboratory, the researchers then systematically tested more than 60 of the faked samples. The results were a 90 percent false verification rate.

"The machines could not distinguish between a live sample and a fake one," Schuckers explained.

Suddenly it no longer looks very difficult to defeat fingerprint scanners. In fact there are articles on the internet telling you how to do it. Fortunately, Schuckers was undertaking this research specifically to see if the machines could be improved.

"Since liveness detection is based on the recognition of physiological activities as signs of life, we hypothesized that fingerprint images from live fingers would show a specific changing moisture pattern due to perspiration but cadaver and spoof fingerprint images would not."

In live fingers, perspiration starts around the pore, and spreads along the ridges, creating a distinct signature of the process. Schuckers and her research team designed a computer algorithm that would detect this pattern when reading a fingerprint image. With the new detection system integrated into the device, less than 10 percent of the spoofed samples were able to fool the machine.

That's a lot better, but still not perfect, or even good enough to put much trust in. It highlights a problem with biometric security, which is that you can't change your personal biological details, so once they become common knowledge you are unable to rely upon them. Biometric security makes sense for low security settings where you don't want to burden users with keycards or other physical keys, but you do have the opportunity to match their biometric data with their identity, but its relatively high cost means it is currently more likely to be used in high security settings.

A better way (also see the news.com.au version) is being pursued by a doctoral student at Carleton University in Canada. Julie Thorpe hopes to be able to compare your brainwaves when you think your password (or rather passthought) with the stored version in order to determine if it is really you. In this way, even if someone manages to 'steal' your brainwaves, you can always change your passthought and use something more secure (of course that could be defated by stealing your brain ... but then again, at that point you're pretty much stuffed anyway!).

Software Piracy

2005-12-23T16:32:00.000+11:00

The Business Software Alliance (BSA) is an organisation put together by a number of software vendors to defend their rights, especially against software piracy. The Business Software Alliance of Australia (BSAA) is the local body affiliated with them. They research the rates of software piracy, publicise the economic effects that said piracy has and offer rewards to incent people to report companies or individuals that undertake software piracy (currently BSAA is offering a $5,000 reward).

BSA recently commissioned International Data Corporation (IDC) to research the IT sector's impact on countries around the world, and specifically to look at the possible economic benefit of a 10% reduction in software piracy in each country. The report is available online, and makes for some interesting reading - although the premise that a 10-point reduction is just as achievable in Indonesia (where software piracy is reportedly around 87%) and Australian (reportedly 32% software piracy) is perhaps a little artificial. However it is an arbitary figure that demonstrates their point well enough. Their definition of piracy rate is worth noting:

Piracy Rate — the percentage of software installed in a country without a license, as measured by the most recent BSA study, conducted by IDC. The piracy rates used were for calendar year 2004.

It is (of course) an estimate, and they figure the global average is 35%, which actually makes Australia's 32% seem almost respectable ...

“Imagine the noise farmers would make if a third of their crop disappeared out of their fields illegally!”

But I can't imagine any other field of endeavour where it would be unremarkable that one third of the products are obtained illegally - except perhaps music and videos, which of course share the digital medium with software. Imagine the noise farmers would make if a third of their crop disappeared out of their fields illegally! The problem is that people see software vendors and resellers as making fat profits off doing nothing ... whereas the reality is that a lot of money is spent to develop new software and their prices are set with the expectation of recouping that investment by reaching a certain percentage of their target market. Imagine what could happen if the market was increased by one third!

Opponents point out that much of the unlicensed software resides on home machines, or decommissioned desktops that were not properly wiped, or is counted as installed but is not actually being used. That then opens another can of worms, if you actually track application usage we've found that much purchased software is not even being used. Therefore if more companies tracked their software license usage, the expected drop in the piracy rate could be matched or exceeded by a drop in the number of over-purchased licenses. However that is disingenuous, from a vendor's standpoint it makes sense to not oversell licenses - after all they want customers to get the biggest bang for their buck, and they would then at least have a fighting chance to fully understand who uses their software, and what for.

Open source software advocates say that this is a reason governments should encourage the use of open source software. But this ignores the fact that even open source software projects need to be funded somehow, and most open source vendors include some form of licensing of their products - even if it is just for commercial use.

I personally suspect that the reason we are seeing so many new web applications launched is that the software license usage can be controlled by the vendor much more easily. After all for a new vendor there is a lot of blood, sweat and tears involved in getting a new product to market. It also encourages the use of a free entry level solution that customers can use whilst they develop trust in the application and prove its usefulness to themselves. That's a big plus in their favour for many of the users that currently might use pirated software under the excuse that they are 'seeing if they like it'. The idea that it is a good thing to get as many users on board as possible at first is behind one theory on Microsoft's relatively soft stance on piracy in China (although it is argued that merely fuels moral relativism, and at some point they must pay). The fact that web applications are inherently Operating System (OS) neutral (especially if cross-browser support is commited to) also helps vendors as it means that the target market need not be limited to a specific set of Windows desktops.

Even in Australia we need to do more about our piracy rates, whether they are really 32% or some much lower (or higher!) figure. Above and beyond the economic considerations raised by IDC's report, there is the fact that any country that tells people that their work is not worth paying for, or that stealing it is socially acceptable even if legally not, is going to find that young people will avoid that sector in droves. The fundamental importance of IT to the economy, to large enterprises, and even to modern SMEs means that we cannot afford to dissuade further growth in that talent pool. Post the dotcom-bust we already have a situation where many bright young students see IT as less attractive than accounting (the things that change ...), and something that should be exported to India, Bangladesh or elsewhere. Whilst that might be true for many dull, routine jobs in IT, or in areas where they are more talented, the sort of work that creates value and new intellectual capital needs to be something that every country continues to invest in locally if they want to ensure their own economic growth.

As a country we need to be committed to make software license violation dangerous, as decision-makers in organisations we need to push for greater accountability in internal software license management, and as individuals we need to fight the social acceptance of software piracy by taking a stance that we can be proud of and avoids sending the private message to our youth that software licensing is a joke.

This will probably be my last post of 2005, so please have a very Merry Christmas celebrating Jesus' birth, and a Happy New Year. All of us at Cattle Dog are hoping everything is peaceful in your part of the globe.

Angus McDonald

del.icio.us tags:

IT/SAM ROI - #1 Replacing Manual Inventories

2005-12-16T12:43:00.000+11:00

In this series of posts I want to cover how to calculate the return on investment (ROI) of your IT/software asset management (IT/SAM) program. Many of the promises of IT/SAM are obviously going to be of benefit to a busy IT department, but justifying the expenditure on licenses, new procedures and staff assignment to the IT/SAM program can seem to be a hard task. I want to cover some ways that the return on investment can be quantified - perhaps not with 100% accuracy, but at least a fair representation of the sorts of returns possible.

In this first post, I want to look at one of the simpler ROI calculations, applicable when you are replacing manual IT/SAM inventories with automated ones. The cost savings from eliminating manual inventories should be relatvely simple to calculate:
There are of course other valuable side effects of using automated tools:

Elimination of manual data entry errors.

Faster inventory times.

More frequent inventories possible.

Lower impact on staff.

Allows automated reconciliation versus software licenses.

Can track usage as well as installations.

del.icio.us tags:

Off-Topic: Process Physics

2005-12-15T13:24:00.000+11:00

Wandering yet more off-topic today, I came across an interesting claim by Australian physicist Reg Cahill that Einstein got it wrong when he invented the conventional idea of space-time. You might have seen the typical TV models for this, involving snooker balls and rubber sheets, with grids representing how space-time 'curves' as it nears a gravity well.

Well Reg thinks that Einstein got space-time wrong, mainly because the experiments he based his theories on were flawed, and crucial irregularities were ignored. A team of physicists at Flinders University are working on Process Physics, which they define as:

A new paradigm for the modelling of reality is currently being developed called Process Physics. In Process Physics we start from the premise that the limits to logic, which are implied by Gödel's incompleteness theorems, mean that any attempt to model reality via a formal system is doomed to failure. Instead of formal systems we use a process system, which uses the notions of self-referential information with self-referential noise and self-organised criticality to create a new type of information-theoretic system that is realising both the current formal physical modelling of reality but is also exhibiting features such as the direction of time, the present moment effect and quantum state entanglement (including EPR effects, nonlocality and contextuality), as well as the more familiar formalisms of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. In particular a theory of Gravity has already emerged.

If you followed yesterday's post on argument mapping and read more into whether computers can think you might notice some parrallels in the problems facing the development of a 'thinking' computer, and this new model of physics. As I understand it, the main one is that both are hampered by Gödel's incompleteness theorems, which highlight the logical impossibility of a formal system modelling a natural process. Good explanations of Gödel's theorems can be found here and here.

From this work they see space as a quantum foam, which explains away the need for "dark matter" and produces expectations more consistent with modern experimental results than Einstein's theory.

Well enough cutting-edge science ... it will be interesting to see if this theory survives contact with its opponents (for one thing it suggests that physicists have been negligent in how they've handled experimental results since Einstein's theories were widely accepted as canon). Bringing things slightly back on-topic, how often do we question widely accepted ideas in our own fields of endeavour?

Off-Topic: Can computers think?

2005-12-14T10:07:00.000+11:00

I came across a great graphical representation of the various arguments about whether computers can think. They are presented as argument maps, a form of graphical representation of thought that owes much to mind mapping, but that takes a more systematic approach to one area of mind mapping - specifically, making an argument's structure visible.

The argument map's specifications:

Seven Maps. 3 x 4 feet each folded to 9 x 12 inches

Elegantly printed in color

97-130 arguments and rebuttals per map

Total of over 800 major moves in the debates summarized and threaded into claims, rebuttals, and counterrebuttals, arranged so that the current stopping point of each thread is easily seen

Organized into over 70 issue areas

43 sidebars provide history and further background

A chronological intellectual history

Current status (or frontier) of debate easily identifable

Identifies original arguments by over 380 protagonists world-wide, hence provides intellectual history of the debate

Eleven major philosophical camps of the protagonists (or schools) summarized

The most interesting part? It's the Australian company Austhink that is behind argument mapping. They also have an example PDF on their website of an argument map formed with some Victorian public servants while considering whether the Victorian government should share public lands and resources with native title applicants.

(As a Sydneysider, I want to see one of these considering the handling of our current water crisis. It would certainly help the public debate to have the various issues mapped out properly.)

Austhink's associate The Reason Group came up with Reason!Able a piece of software that helps people create their own visual argument maps. I'm going to get a copy of this myself - I can think of a half-dozen areas of our business it could help with.

[UPDATE: OK, I have tried ordering this through their official supplier, Edsoft, but their credit card page is not encrypted - so there is no way I am going to give them my CC details on the web. I can still play with the trial - just not print or save anything.]

Microsoft Secrets

2005-12-07T14:14:00.000+11:00

Some of us have the unenviable task of negotiating a Microsoft Enterprise or Select agreement. When you're going up against Microsoft sales staff who do this regularly, you start with a significant disadvantage. Microsoft Secrets is a detailed guide as to how you can negotiate more effectively with Microsoft. It's written by Scott Braden, an IT/SAM consultant in the US, who spent 8 years working for a Microsoft Large Account Reseller (LAR), helping sell Enterprise/Select agreements.

The investment is hefty, a couple of grand, but then again, even a small negotiating advantage can save you thousands of dollars when dealing with Microsoft. Frankly I think Scott's being smart by not packaging this into a book and selling it - after all if everyeone knows the secrets then they're less valuable.

I've had a couple of dialogues with Scott, and I'm sure you will find this material well worth the investment (otherwise I wouldn't bother mentioning it here). You can get a tiny bit of it for FREE in Scott's How to Negotiate With Microsoft article on Microsoft Watch.

One of the keys turns out to be having IT/SAM already in place. Get a good idea of what software (both from Microsoft and other vendors) you are actually using, identify what licenses you can prove you own. This sets you up for success, because you have an accurate idea of what you need, and (almost as important) what you don't need. This information is not available to the Microsoft guy, but he'll put the onus on you to prove your figures, which is where an established IT/SAM program is so helpful. If you need to improve your IT/SAM program, then look at our better software license management solution.

What do you think about negotiating with Microsoft? Are there any negotiating tips you can share with us? Click on the comments link below to leave your comment.

Tech Tip: Customising MSI installations without MST files

2005-12-06T09:13:00.000+11:00

The introduction of Microsoft Installer (MSI) has made it much easier to rollout software to Windows desktops. However, if you need to customise the installation you must use Microsoft Transform (MST) files to tweak the installation. Without a vendor tool these are difficult to create, requiring detailed knowledge of the application in question and MSI. Fortunately, Snow Distribution offers a much easier solution.

Using Snow Distribution, take a baseline snapshot of your test computer with the MSI package installed with default settings. Customise the application settings as desired, then Identify Changes and Save the package. You end up with a Snow Distribution package that can modify your default MSI installation to fit your needs.

In detail, the steps are:
1. Use a "clean" test PC.
2. Install the product with default settings (Use MSIEXEC.exe /QN to make sure).
3. Using the Add Application wizard, create a baseline with Snow Distribution.
4. Configure the product, including the installation of additional features, or removal of unnecessary features. This can include printer and paper settings, and other changes not directly related to the application.
5. Identify Changes to capture these customisations ,and finish off the package creation.
6. Create a script for the MSI installation.
7. Modify the MSI package's Snow Distribution script to run the customisation package after the MSI install.

Example:

[Application]
Group="Start Menu\Software\Application"
Run="C:\Program Files\Software\Application.exe"
Version=20005223
Copy=...
Reg=...
Ini=...
Depends=%ApCode()%_U
Depends1=%ApCode()%_MSI

[Application_U]
Version=20005223
Copy=...
Reg=...
Ini=...

[Application_MSI]
Version=20005223
MSI=...\Application.msi

This demonstrates the flexibility of Snow Distribution and how it can be used with various installation packages to acheive your desired outcome.

Cattle Dog Assets

2005-12-01T16:40:00.000+11:00

Finally we have some Cattle Dog and Snowy Software merchandise organised to reward great customers with and to give you something to wear on mufti days at the office!

We're adding links to these on the right-hand side of this blog (hint: scroll down), but you can also see them at the Cattle Dog Assets store.

Note: We have a lot more products than what you see here!

del.icio.us tags:

Reasons to Audit - #7 Unknown Flavours of Software

2005-11-29T12:28:00.000+11:00

Here's one last reason to audit, to finish off that series before we go onto ROI. Computerworld has an interesting article entitled Navy Takes Command of IT Assets. It is another good example of a large organisation taking charge of their IT/software asset management (IT/SAM) and being surprised at the results.

“We have every operating system that's been developed over the past 15 years, some of which I've never even heard of”
Capt. Chris Christopher

The effort has enabled the Navy to identify and locate more than 250,000 systems installed in some 200 locations, said Capt. Chris Christopher, a leader in the Navy's Program Executive Office for Information Technology in Arlington, Va. ...

Through the network-scanning program, the Navy hopes to get a better handle on its widely distributed IT assets. For example, the effort has already helped the Navy identify some obsolete operating systems that the group now plans to eliminate.

"We have every operating system that's been developed over the past 15 years, some of which I've never even heard of," Christopher said. "What we intend to do once we have our arms around everything out there is to look at what we have and make business decisions" about their use.

The program has yielded other insights. In evaluating the distribution of the Navy's operating systems, for example, Christopher's team discovered "that we have a good chunk of Linux out there." Because the Navy hasn't standardized on a particular version of Linux, "it would probably make sense for us to develop a standard policy," he said. "Scanning on a monthly basis will allow us to see those trends."

Doing a benchmark IT/SAM audit before a big migration project can help identify unexpected issues before they cause problems during the rollout. Finding out everything that already exists is an essential first step that many IT managers classify as too hard, or too expensive. The Snow Inventory One-Time Scan License (OTSL) gives you the benefits of an automated audit tool, with a database back-end, but also the low cost required to justify the expense of a one-off audit.

del.icio.us tags:

SMBs Should Consider Managed Services

2005-11-17T16:01:00.000+11:00

From ZDNet's Datapoint blog comes a report about Gartner recommending that SMBs should consider managed services as challenges mount. According to ZDNet's Chris Jablonski, the key recommendations were:

Watch the impact that Microsoft has on the desktop security market.

Adopt a philosophy that any spending for compliance also can contribute to improved overall performance of the organization.

Plan to migrate to a service-oriented architecture (SOA).

Evaluate maturing, managed and remote services to help improve infrastructure management.

(emphasis added)

One question that raises is what sort of "maturing, managed and remote services" are there available to "help improve infrastructure management"?

Funnily enough, Cattle Dog has a solution for SMBs looking for a managed SAM service. We will be launching a managed SAM service this December that will give SMBs affordable access to a great SAM solution on a monthly subscription basis.

Based on the Snow iCOLLECT toolbox License Manager for Service Providers Edition (SLM SPE), this will give you easy access to a SAM solution, without needing to host it yourselves. Contact us if you would like to know more prior to the launch date.

del.icio.us tags:

Tech Tip: Implementing Snow Distribution in AD through ZAP files

2005-11-17T09:18:00.000+11:00

One of the queries customers often have about Snow Distribution is why it doesn't place packages in the Add/Remove Programs list, using Windows Installer. The simple answer is that this is because Snow Distribution works on many different types of networks (not just Active Directory) and Windows versions before Win2K (when Windows Installer was introduced). However, you CAN take all your existing Snow Distribution packages and implement them directly into Windows Installer through a ZAP file (Zero Administration Package).

When you publish a ZAP file to Active Directory, it makes your script available from Add/Remove Programs list, and it supports "Document Invocation"; meaning that you can double click a file with a specific extension and it will install the appropriate application. For example, a ZAP file containing a Microsoft Publisher installation script, could install Microsoft Publisher when you first tried to open a .pub file.

What is a ZAP file? A ZAP file is a file formatted as an INI file, with settings that allow it to be published in Active Directory. Only MSI and ZAP files are supported this way by Active Directory. MSI (Microsoft Installer) files are a new way of packaging applications introduced for Windows Installer, ZAP was designed to handle legacy non-MSI installation packages.

ZAP files have limits in that they only initiate an installation, they does not provide a mechanism for silent, hands-free and non-privileged installations. However when we use a Snow Distribution package to do the install we can get elevated privileges, make any installation silent and hands-free, and all without the hassle of creating an MSI file.

Here is an example ZAP file, that uses Snow Distribution to make Microsoft Publisher 2000 available to users:

[Winzip]
FriendlyName=Microsoft Publisher 2000
SetupCommand=Snow32.exe mspublisher2000
DisplayVersion=6.0
Publisher=Microsoft
URL=http://www.microsoft.com/Office/publisher/

[Ext]
PUB=
ARJ=

The information provided will be shown in the "Add/Remove Programs" section of the Windows Control Panel.

del.icio.us tags:

Reasons to Audit - #6 Reducing Software License Costs

2005-11-08T14:49:00.000+11:00

One of the easiest ways to get a good return on investment (ROI) from your software asset management (SAM) project is by looking for potential savings from identifying over-installed and under-used software licenses.

“Software is a huge cost for most organizations. Organizations tend to use only approximately 70% of the server licenses they pay for and only about 70% of capacity.”
Jason Sango, Forsythe

Computerworld have a great article, that talks about how software compliance doesn't just protect you from litigation, but actually has a real benefit by reducing your IT costs.

For example, one of Snow's clients is an global manufacturer, that manages IT centrally from their base in Europe, but has offices all around the world. At one of their sites they had 110 licensed copies of Adobe Photoshop. Using Snow Metering (part of the Snow SAM solution), they found that 80 of those had been used for less than one hour over a 6 month period.

They replaced the full Adobe Photoshop license with file viewers for half of those users, and removed the software from the other half's computers. The end result was a much lower software maintenance/assurance cost, and the ability to harvest those licenses for use by other areas of the business.

“According to leading analysts, many CIOs believe that as much as 20% of all installed desktop software is unused, often becoming 'shelfware'.”
Jason Sango, Forsythe

This sort of ROI is not unusual for SAM projects, but you do need to be aware that it depends upon how much your core business relies upon licensed software, and the degree of homogeneity across your desktop systems.

For example, if you are a law firm that only uses Microsoft Office, and you already have an enterprise license, then there may be little benefit. Unless you have a small group of users with Microsoft Project and Microsoft Visio - in which case you may want to know who actually needs those extra licenses.

Another example, an engineering consultancy might have AutoCAD licenses for 20 concurrent users. At roughly $20,000 per license, and with it being a core part of their business, they need to be sure that they have enough licenses, but not too many. In the absence of a strong SAM program, they will probably buy too many licenses.

However, what if they could look at a report that told them how many times in the last 3 months they actually had 20 users in AutoCAD at the same time? Then they would be able to optimise their software licensing so that it matched their real needs.

There are some more reasons to audit that we will cover in the future, but our next series will look at the issue of return on investment (ROI) and how to calculate ROI for your SAM and software deployment projects.

Welcoming Anthony Kola

2005-10-31T08:02:00.000+11:00

Anthony has been with the Cattle Dog/Snowy Software team for a while now, but we've just added him to the blog this week so that he can do the odd post. His background is more network engineering than my custom application development, so he might come up with some more technical posts for users of Snowy's products.

Reasons to Audit - #5 Font Piracy

2005-10-26T11:42:00.000+10:00

It is a little known fact amongst people without a printing or graphics background, but fonts are copyright protected just the same as software is. The right to use fonts is usually bestowed via the purchase of a printer or software application. There are certain fonts included with your operating system, and others that come with common office productivity packages (such as MS Office).

There are also lots of websites where fonts can be downloaded, sometimes for free, sometimes at a small cost. Many of those fonts are being sold illegally, and others are poor imitations of a purchasable font.

However, the most frequent cause of illegal font use is the sharing of fonts by users who do not realise that they are copyright protected. Unfortunately, that is not much of a defence if you are audited by a font-provider like Adobe, or are subject to an external audit for other reasons. Often the user currently using a computer was not even aware that the font had been installed without a license, and may innocently use it in external publications or marketing material.

Our Snow Inventory tool can audit the fonts installed on each of your computers, helping you to identify fonts that are illegally installed. There is still a manual process identifying which application provided which font files (once you have ignored the standard ones provided by Windows/Office), but at least you will know what is on each computer.

If you would like more information, Adobe have a comprehensive explanation of what font piracy is, and how to avoid it.

Wilma Strikes Cattle-Dog.com.au

2005-10-25T16:09:00.000+10:00

Well, in an interconnected world it shouldn't surprise me that this happens, but cattle-dog.com.au is down because of hurricane Wilma. My American webhost tells me that:

As many of you are aware, one of our datacenters was in the direct path of hurricane Wilma. Although the facility should be well equipped to handle such storms, there has been a serious failure within the 10MW generator plant. Onsite engineers have been unsuccessful in attempts to restore backup power and additional support is enroute. At this time, the ETA for repair is 3:30 EST.

Apparently they discovered the single point of failure:

The power failure today was apparently caused by the the failure of the pump that delivers fuel to the generators. This pump was not a redundant component and must be repaired before the generators can be put back online.

I wonder whether the owners of that datacenter will be hit with legal suits alleging negligence given that a non-redundant component was allowed to have such a great effect?

Update: 26-Oct-2005, 11:00am
Well cattle-dog.com.au was briefly up again and then we had more bad news.

Although backup power was successfully restored earlier today ET, and servers began coming online, the generator plant has experienced an outage as of 1:10 pm ET which has resulted in service interruption and is currently being assessed and worked on by a team of technicians. We will provide an updated repair time estimate as soon as it is available, and will continue to post updates to this site.

If you are trying to send any of us here at Cattle Dog emails, you can still do so via our snowysoftware.com.au domain (same name before the @ symbol). At least that domain is hosted in Australia!

Update: 27-Oct-2005, 12:20pm
Good news! We are back up and running again.

Keeping Busy With Babies

2005-10-18T11:28:00.000+10:00

Things have been a bit hectic in the McDonald household, we had a new addition to the family last week, a beautiful baby girl. My posting frequency has been a bit slow, but I am getting back in the saddle this week.

Our thanks to everyone who has given us such great support, gifts (pink of course!) and love during this time.

Angus McDonald

Reasons to Audit - #4 Keeping Track of Leased Hardware

2005-10-04T13:36:00.000+10:00

The SAM tool we recommend does not just audit software, but hardware as well. When you want to know where your IT assets are, it is as much about knowing where a particular machine is as anything else.

“Laptops are by their nature very portable and many will be out on location at the time of any stocktake ...”
DoHA Spokesperson

Back in June Computerworld had an illuminating story 'Missing' laptops stir invoicing concerns, that mentioned that the Department of Health and Ageing (DoHA) had problems locating laptops leased from IBM Global Services.

This is an IT Asset Management problem. The department's spokesperson blamed the portability of laptops for the error, however a robust IT Asset Management solution (such as the one we use) would not only track offsite computers (via http or email), but would do so regularly enough that you would not be waiting for months to find out whether it really existed or not.

IBM Global Services seems to have been nice enough to have credited the department for the laptops invoiced, but not actually held by them, but you cannot always rely upon such largesse.

Get a regular hardware and software audit done daily, with laptops and other off-network machines sending reports in via http or email. Track custom information about your hardware, such as asset numbers from the lessor, and be able to create reports based on yesterday's audit in a flash, rather than needing to call for a stocktake. That way you won't be invoiced for hardware you don't have, or need, any more.

Reasons to Audit - #3 Disaster Recovery Planning

2005-09-27T13:51:00.000+10:00

Gartner have a blog following the impact of the Katrina and Rita hurricanes on the Gulf coast of the USA. One of their recent posts called "Advice From the Trenches" covered what seemed to separate companies with successful recovery efforts from others. The most important point in my mind was:

They started the planning process early. Those that had a plan and activated it 48 hours prior to the storm at the latest were effective.

Does your company have a business continuity or disaster recovery plan? One of the first steps you will need to take in creating such a plan is to identify the assets your company depends upon to deliver your products/services to your customers ... including your IT assets.

If you do not yet have a Business Continuity Plan (BCP) then I urge you to consider creating one and implementing the necessary steps to protect your company, its staff and its customers from the potentially huge negative impact of a disaster. If you want to get an independent IT asset audit done, then we would be more than willing to help.

Uninterruptible Work

2005-09-07T14:59:00.000+10:00

I happened to witness an incident at one of my client's offices last week that was a timely reminder of the importance of IT to many modern businesses. There were 15 or 16 people working away on PCs, doing everything from database work to just answering emails, or checking their calendars. Someone called out "I'm turning the urn off, please use the jug." Suddenly the lights went out, every workstation computer crashed and a shocked silence fell.

“suddenly the lights went out, every workstation computer crashed and a shocked silence fell”

Moments later the lights came back on, the computers rebooted (many with the blue screen of hard disk checks) and pandemonium broke out.

Many people had lost their work, for some only a few minutes worth, but for others a more significant hour or so. Fortunately the three servers had their own uninterruptible power supply (UPS), so little database work was lost. But there was a real cost in terms of work that needed to be re-done, and potential damage to the unprotected computer equipment.

An important part of IT asset management is protecting your computers against this sort of problem. For a start the jug and urn should have been on a different breaker circuit than the workstation computers ... especially as the problem has occurred before. Also, only protecting your servers with UPS is a false economy. Look at getting a UPS system setup for the entire office; servers, workstations and (if possible) printers. Cattle Dog runs on just such a system and it ensures that even if we cannot continue working for long without power, we can at least prevent damage to the equipment and avoid losing work in progress.

del.icio.us tags:

Reasons to Audit - #2 Peace of Mind

2005-08-31T16:36:00.000+10:00

Guilt. What you are probably feeling if you're not certain that every computer in your business is free of unlicensed software. Wikipedia tells us that “In psychology and ordinary language, guilt is simply a negative affective state in which one experiences regret at having done something one believes one should not have done.”

“Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind.”
King Henry IV, Part III
William Shakespeare

The advent of the internet created an unusual social phenomenon, with people suddenly able to acquire access to huge amounts of copyrighted material, and often have the means to ignore that copyright. Suddenly there was a shift towards accepting piracy, particularly of non-physical assets such as computer software. This is perhaps why the BSAA goes to great pains to ensure that we all know why software piracy is a problem for both the local and global computer industry.

Peace of mind is a great reason for ensuring that your business does not have illegal software installed. You can know that not only are you intending to obey the law, but that your asset management systems ensure that you do in fact obey it.

Do you feel you need help managing your IT assets? Why not have us kickstart your IT asset management systems?

Reasons to Audit - #1 Network Documentation Annual Review

2005-08-24T21:31:00.000+10:00

There are a large number of reasons why you might want to do a software/hardware audit. A particularly good one is an annual check that your network documentation is up to date. Of course, that begs the question; Why keep network documentation?

Here are some great reasons why accurate network documentation is a good thing:

Protection from Buses: People joke about getting run over by a bus, but what if that really happened to your network support person? (or their plane crashed, or they were kidnapped, or they got a better job offer?)

Avoid Rats' Nests: Ever had a good look at the network cables in your server room? Which ones go where?

Needless Complexity: Sure you needed those 3 routers, that hub and the 4 9600 baud modems back in the good ol' days, but do you still need them?

Traffic Jams: Which machines have old network cards? Do you know which PC is still running a 10Mbps network card, and so slowing the rest of your network?

Location Confusion: Sure, marketing stores their documents on M: drive, but which box is that actually on? Is it being backed up?

Growing Pains: Want to add a new employee? Sure we'll just order a new PC and get them setup right away ... but do we have spare licenses we could use for them? Do we want to be forced into Office 2003 just because the vendor doesn't offer Office 2000? Do we have enough licenses for them to have application X installed?

There are probably a lot more reasons why network documentation is a good thing, but at the end of the day having an accurate hardware and software inventory is going to be a fundamental requirement.

Changes to the Copyright Act

2005-08-09T18:11:00.000+10:00

The legal implications of illegal software use changed significantly in January 2005 when the Australian Copyright Act was updated as a result of the Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA). It has now become a criminal offence to obtain a commercial advantage or financial gain by violating copyright (i.e. unlicensed, hacked or otherwise illegally obtained or modified software), or to commit significant willful violations of copyright. The offences carry jail terms of up to 5 years, and fines of up to $467,500 for companies ($93,500 for individuals).

Previously this was a simple civil offence under the Copyright Act, and was only pursued by the copyright owner or in the case of software, by the Business Software Association of Australia (BSAA). Therefore the need for companies to protect themselves from illegal use of software (or for that matter, violations of copyright such as MP3 downloading) has increased.

Welcome to our new blog, the Round Up!

2005-08-09T14:14:00.000+10:00

Things are changing here at Cattle Dog. These are not sudden changes, but only the visible signs of the changes that have been happening internally since February this year.

The changes include a shift in our services to focus exclusively on IT asset management and protection. We also changed our focus from helping accounting firms exclusively, to helping SMEs in general.

Feel free to discuss these changes with us, either here on our blog, or through our contact form on our main website.

Angus McDonald