‘Disruptive innovation’, a term coined by Clayton Christensen, looks set to hit the ‘Software Asset Management’ (SAM) market next. For many years, SAM tools have managed the domain of the desktop estate and the applications deployed there – but recently some incremental innovations have affected this.
For example, developments in packaging formats (e.g. App-V) and the virtualization of desktops and applications (apps). However, fundamentally these changes have been about making the management of the desktop easier and more flexible; the SAM systems have evolved to support these changes to the world they manage.
But there’s a new and more significant innovation that’s established and growing in the Enterprise; the use of cloud, web & SaaS apps. This does two significant things to the desktop environment:
1. It moves the apps off the desktop and into the cloud, to be managed by the SaaS vendor
2. And, moving the software to the cloud reduces the scope of installed software towards zero. When it falls low enough, it enables ‘Bring Your Own Device’ (BYOD), and a plethora of device choices for the end-users.
These two main changes are major headaches for the SAM vendors. If there are no apps and no devices to manage then what is the purpose of a SAM, or even an ITAM tool? So what do the SAM vendors do in response to this disruptive innovation?
The enlightened vendors are taking on a broader device management scope which then gives them an opportunity to seek to manage SaaS apps; but this is whole new arena for the SAM vendors.
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There are those, like Microsoft, who have seen this coming and have invested and are re-inventing their solution (e.g. the integration of System Center with InTune). However, the vendors with the financial muscle to take this path are few and far between. And, even if they do take this path they face competition from a new class of vendors in the mobile device management arena; most of which have been snapped up by larger companies like Citrix and VMware.
Then there’s another shift in the forecast that I’m predicting and that’s one to usage based licensing; not licensing per user but actually pay per use. Think about your home services (gas, electricity, phone, cable TV etc) and you’ll find these are all pay per use. Anything that’s provided on demand ends up being pay per use. This shift will also devalue what the SAM vendors currently have by way of license management.
The SAM vendors have many large competitive pressures ahead in the form of disruptive innovation – but will this change happen overnight? As with any well-established market, the SAM market will take a long time to decline but my firm belief is it’ll decline unless they radically rethink their propositions. There may still be some time to build, buy or license their way to continued success but many just won’t have the resources and vision to remain successful.
However, it’s exciting to also see the value that some vendors, like Microsoft, are now placing on usage measurement in their initiatives – with the sale of Office 365 for example. We recognised several years ago where the market was headed and we’ve been building a tool that measures what’ll be important in a predominantly cloud based software delivery world. We’re open to partnering with SAM vendors if they want to supplement their traditional inventory based approach with a usage measurement approach and provide visibility of Saas software.
