Part of Response IT's duties for our customers is to help with their Software Asset Management and Licenses. Find the most cost effective solution for their needs and make sure this is kept in a way to produce to Software Vendors if ever the need for Audits. One of the benefits from buying software from Us is that this happens automatically for you.

Game Changer ....

Salesforce was a close creator of the vison of Software being a service instead of a product. The solution would be paid for in a subscription which would let you use it and have access to all the future updates instead of a once off purchase. Some people like paying for things outright as they can see the final price , however when things get more expensive due to celeverer functionality, the cost goes up and this doesn't become viable. Some key companies who have followed :

Microsoft

The whole microsoft license sheme has changed from a direct one purchase now to a monthly per user model, no more software assurance rules like MDOP, VDA, per device. And the upgradability on these licenses are mearly a flick switch so computers can be upgraded to be joined to the domain , and functionaly for 365 Users can be changed by changing their price plan ( per user not for the whole group !)

Adobe

They have been on the front runner for this for sometime, and probably due to the cost of their product its been a great welcome. Initial outlays from Adobe Creative Suite where a big hit for one company , and change thing between users where complex and needed software for auditing. Now this is managed in a central dashboard for all the companies products that can be switched around when needed and activated by email straight to the user.

Pluses

Self Audits and Costings

Employee's sometimes in a rush were forced to buy software and or hardware themselves which would get them up and running however to check if they had purchased the correct version E.g. Home instead of a professional version of Windows to Join to the domain and Audit the purchase for future SAM Adutis and expense the purchase under the right cost center!

Instant meaasurments

Companies can now check their monthly spendature on Software and Software Vendors can see in realtime companies use which means auditing can be done efficently without SAM Consultants or Software

No Wastage

As instant measurements are so easy , licenses can be re-assigned in realtime making sure no license is doubly users and users who have left the firm do not leave with it on their personal device

All in all , this helps everyone , simplier equals easier to manage which reduces the overall costs ! Microsoft are even stopping SAM

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/04/13/microsoft_we_have_a_bullet_ready_for_12_competencies/

Stability

Economies of scale plays into this alot. Cloud providers ike Microsoft and Amazon invest heavilly into making sure they have multi layers of reduancy in regards to all layers of their infrasturcure as well as users existing on two datacenters just incase one gets destroyed in a natural diaster. Yes..... these services still go down from time to time however this will only get better with time!

Collaboration

The world is opening up wether Brexit or Trump proves otherwise! Small Business now can be under 10 people dotted around the world with the help of the internet. Internet connections from e.g. the U.K. to Australia are still not good enough yet to stream a Virtual Desktop Faultlessly. The cloud can now enable remote workers login to their local data center and work without the slowness of before.

Mobility

Mobiles and Tablets are taking on much more of the processing them previously thanks to good development and hardware. Cost of building Web Apps are more complex thanever due to security and amount of devices. Cloud providers work on unifying their apps to work across platform which saves internal development

Scalibilty / Speed

One of the great perks about cloud is the scaling. You can start your organisation on a 5 seat E3 Office 365 license and grow up to 1000 seats by just increasing your subscription count! Let someone else worry about the building of new servers and data rooms while you continue to run your business. The amount of servers Microsoft have you can now start using this scalable resource for Business Intelligence straight into 365.

Intergration

Previously when you purchased some software for example Sage Accounting, to be able to export that data for example into Excel to be able to forecast and predict figures you would have you build custom written macros for this. With the invention of cloud it has started getting cloud providers to build API's and work with other third partners for click of the button intergration! For example a great Accounting Tool we use called Xero. To be able to keep track of our workforces expenses, we can use a seperate thirdparty tool called Receipt Bank and this how enable employees to submit their expense forms and receipts into Zero saving out Accoutant lots of work!