Maidenhead, UK – August 17, 2017 – Flexera, the company that’s reimagining how software is bought, sold, managed and secured, laid out a game-changing Software Asset Management (SAM) vision today during a global Live Streaming Event. The company is pioneering a new collaborative plan to repair the broken software supply chain and reduce the risk, waste and unpredictability of buying and managing software.
“Software is everywhere, so SAM has to be everywhere too. To get better software ROI, buyers need to tear down walls – between themselves and their suppliers, and internally between departments. As a SAM provider, we also must break down barriers between SAM tools and other solutions,” said Tom Canning, Vice President of Strategy at Flexera. “Today we’re laying out the most comprehensive SAM vision in our company’s history. It will ensure our customers get the software and hardware asset data they need, when and where they need it, to make better business decisions. And it will forever change how companies think about the value SAM delivers across the organisation.”
Bridging the Divide
To deliver a ‘single source of truth’ both software suppliers and buyers can agree on, a SAM solution must be powered by data. Intelligence underpins the accuracy of asset, software compliance, vulnerability exposure, and other SAM reports. Flexera’s research team already has built the industry’s largest data repository of over 150 million data points. It includes open source components, software recognition rules, product use rights, stock keeping units (SKUs), and software vulnerabilities from Secunia Research at Flexera.
Today, Flexera is adding end of service life data to its repository. Now customers can identify and get rid of outdated and unsupported software, reducing security risks and eliminating wasteful maintenance payments.
Flexera’s bridging the divide between software suppliers and buyers by, for the first time, empowering software suppliers to contribute directly to Flexera’s SAM data repository. Accurate vendor-supplied data reduces the time and effort customers spend managing software. A new Nexus Data Cloud lets vendors like Microsoft contribute “certified software intelligence” to the repository. Flexera will announce additional vendors contributing to the Data Cloud in the coming weeks and months.
Security professionals also need clear visibility into what software they own and is installed on the network. Flexera’s bridging the divide between internal IT Operations and Security teams by bringing together FlexNet Manager Suite and Software Vulnerability Manager. For the first time vendor management teams can quickly generate a list of applications installed in their environment, monitor vulnerability risk and increase awareness. Instant visibility also lets companies reduce security risk by minimizing the delay between when a new vulnerability is disclosed and when the security team becomes aware of it.
Visibility for All
Companies need to unleash information previously locked deep within their SAM tools and make it easily accessible to executives anywhere and everywhere. Today Flexera is launching Insights Data Analytics for FlexNet Manager Suite. It gives all users, regardless of their technical expertise or business need, a quick and easy customized view of their on-premises and cloud-based software and hardware assets.
Expanding its SAM leadership deeper into the cloud, Flexera’s also announcing broader support for SaaS applications, beginning with Salesforce.com. FlexNet Manager Suite now helps companies lower costs with new insights into Salesforce subscription and renewal data. FlexNet Manager Suite already supports Microsoft Office 365 subscriptions and Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). With added Salesforce.com capabilities, Flexera simplifies managing software in all environments – desktops, servers, virtual and the cloud.
Powering the SAM Ecosystem
Customers deploy multiple IT solutions to address strategic business needs. So, SAM solutions must work well in a broader ecosystem to help customers achieve value from any of these tools. Flexera is introducing the most extensive IT ecosystem in the SAM space with its new Solution Exchange.
To enable an expanded ecosystem, Flexera also is announcing that it’s the first SAM provider in the industry to open up its APIs, enabling fast and easy integration with complementary solutions. Flexera partners like AirTrack, Anglepoint, Astute Licensing, Binadox, Infraware, Ray • Allen, Tribal Knowledge and UnifyCloud are leveraging the Solution Exchange and Flexera’s open platform to showcase their integrated solutions.
Flexera already collaborates with Strategic Technology Partners like BMC and ServiceNow to develop integrated solutions to further extend the SAM ecosystem. Most recently Flexera announced a partnership with IT Financial management leader Apptio, making it easier for organizations to pinpoint what IT assets they own and how much they actually cost.
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