While PCs within an organization are in use for almost 100 percent of every work hour, many of them contain software that is never used, resulting in unnecessary costs for licenses and support contracts.
 
ASAP Software® has added a Software Usage Module to its eSMART asset management solution that helps organizations identify under-used and unused applications and take steps to eliminate these additional costs.
 
ASAP eSMART's Software Usage Module offers standard and customizable reports that provide real time, extensive detail on the software usage habits of every user within an organization.  IT managers can see who is using which applications and for how long.  
 
"It shows when and for how long an application was open on a specific machine, or if it was never opened, but doesn't track what someone is doing within the application.  If a master image includes Microsoft Office Professional, but only a few people use Access, for instance, there might be other, less expensive alternatives," said Rick Gunther, ASAP's senior vice president of sales, introducing the new module at ASAP's summer sales meeting.
 
The eSMART Software Usage Module collects usage data automatically every time a user launches an application, and the total runtime of that application is recorded.  IT administrators can then view the data on demand either by device or business unit, or across the entire organization in a series of customizable reports.  They can automate software usage monitoring even further by scheduling reports to be e-mailed to them automatically at intervals they choose.

In addition to under-utilized applications, eSMART's Software Usage will help detect who is using applications that employ streaming audio or video, which eats up bandwidth and can slow down a network.

"Software usage monitoring is now one of the most requested features of an asset management solution.  We take this a step further by showing customers how they can use other features of our asset management solutions in conjunction with usage monitoring to gain immediate benefits.  When an eSMART customer discovers unlicensed applications through our software reconciliation report, they can use the software usage module to determine whether they need to license them or eliminate them. There's a big piece of eSMART ROI right there," said Harry Zoberman, ASAP's senior vice president of marketing and operations.