One of the main advantages presented by an asset management solution is the assurance that installed software in a system does not exceed purchased software. By enabling audits of how many installations of an application have been purchased and how many actually installed, it can keep companies in compliance with piracy laws.
Since employees can surreptitiously install software in their machines, the compliance that an IT staff has ensured is in place on Tuesday can easily be violated on Wednesday.
Through recurring, scheduled scans, administrators can regularly monitor compliance and be alerted via email when someone violates it, ensuring that compliance is maintained on a long-term, on-going basis. There can be no excuse for being hit with a huge fine from regulators because of failure to spot illegal software downloaded by employees. Additional benefits can be realized by public companies and government agencies that must comply with specific regulations like Sarbanes-Oxley, as well as by any IT enterprise seeking to implement best practices such as IT Infrastructure Library.
