AssetMetrix Offers Fast Microsoft Inventory Service As Licensing 6.0 Nears

AssetMetrix, of Ottawa, Canada, has developed a Internet hosted service designed specifically to conduct speedy inventories of Microsoft software as the hourglass to the Licensing 6.0 deadline approaches.

AssetMetrix's LicenseTracker service, which provides a quick and accurate snapshot of a company's Microsoft software in just a few hours, is a hosted service delivered over the Internet that requires no server or client software deployment, company officials said. It conducts inventories for companies with as few as 100 PCs to as many as 15,000 PCs, officials said.

AssetMetrix is working directly with more than 30 resellers including CompuCom and Dell to extend the service to Microsoft's SMB and enterprise customers before July 31. Partners can integrate it into their own services.

The service--based on a technology called AssetAgent--offers zero impact on a customer's operation and infrastructure since it consists of a 200Kb downloaded Active X control that automatically audits PCs via e-mail, over LAN or via a diskette. Additionally, AssetMetrix is topology-transparent and allows companies to inventory all of their mobile workforce and remote branch offices as well as their LAN-based PCs.

The service is aimed to help companies negotiate Licensing 6.0 contracts with Microsoft, officials said. "Our business has been ticking up dramatically," said Paul Bodnoff, president and CEO of AssetMetrix, who estimates LicenseTracker can do a full software count in two or three hours. "Our strategy is channel-based; we're not the fulfillment side of the house. A customer creates an account with us, logs in, requests a pulse, which is an ActiveX control, and then it is delivered through e-mail on login. The information is all fired back to our hosted database where customers [or their solution provider can start looking at reports and slice and dice the data. And then they hand it over to the reseller. We sit right in the middle."

Dell has used AssetMetrix in large projects for six months as well as other software inventory services from Microsoft and BlueWhale as the clock ticks down for enrolling into Microsoft's Upgrade Advantage and/or Software Assurance programs. One Dell executive said it does the job in two to three hours.

"Because of the July 31 deadline, lots of customers are challenged with how to count what's in their environment," said Melissa Porter, Microsoft licensing marketing manager for Dell's preferred accounts division. "We use all services. AssetMetrix has a service our customers like in ease of deployment and data storage. It can do it in two to three hours."

The LicenseTracker Service, which is offered at $2 per seat, is a scaled-down version of the company's existing portfolio of services targeted at Microsoft Licensing 6.0. The Microsoft service collects more than 250 data points from every PC it inventories and provides an accurate count and qualitative analysis of various types of Microsoft licenses held, and potential violations, for Windows and Office. However, it does not offer hardware inventory and the full line of business analysis reports available by subscribing to AssetMetrix's other 30-day, 60-day and annual subscription services known as Impact, Project and Premier.

But with the window of opportunity closing on Licensing 6.0 in two weeks, LicenseTracker gives procrastinators a more vital function--speedy, accurate inventory data. "The big pain with software and hardware discovery is being able to do it quickly and painlessly," said Bodnoff, noting he is seeing increased business as the deadline approaches. "We had a 5,000-seat customer find us at 9 a.m. and have their inventory done in the same afternoon, even with a decentralized worldwide organization with different time zones. It's a quick and easy way to get an answer."

Following two extensions due to the initial outcry and then the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Microsoft announced the July 31 deadline for enrolling existing licenses in its Upgrade Advantage and new Software Assurance programs last October. Microsoft said it will not grant additional extensions.

While the controversial Licensing 6.0 program has been deemed as a tax by some and a ransom by others, Gartner Group advises companies to study the cost implications carefully as Microsoft's upgrade prices--a historical benefit for repeat customers--go away after July 31. Gartner Group analysts, for example, predict that clients who miss this deadline could pay up to 45 percent more for their licenses at their next upgrade cycle if they don't enroll in Licensing 6.0.