Software Recycling

Software recycling is the process by which software that is no longer needed by an individual is passed to another individual that has a genuine need. The passing of the license from one individual to another saves the cost of an additional license.  In a large organization, with multiple licensed titles across distributed and often autonomous organizations, recycling licenses is at once highly challenging but potentially hugely lucrative. Given the potential savings, we have seen customers save millions when implemented systematically, software recycling is a process that most organizations should consider.

Software Usage Metering

However, the process of software recycling is not as straightforward as the opening statement suggests for two main reasons. Firstly, in order to recycle as software licenses as possible, there must be a way to unequivocally determine whether the person it is currently allocated too needs the license. Of course picking up the phone or emailing is a way to approach this, but it does not yield accurate results and is very costly (far more than would be saved the recycling itself). Tools such as Survey™ solve this problem by identifying accurately whether the software is actively used. This is done by watching the type and intensity of human interaction with the software. This process is sometimes called software usage metering, but in the case of the Survey we are not just looking to see whether a product has been launched, we check wether the usage of the software reflects a genuine need for the license allocated to support it. It is only by looking in this granular fashion can the maximum savings be calculated.

Software Recycling License Constraints

The second other item to consider is any license recycling constraints that apply to the software in question. Most software vendors enable software to be recycled within fixed timeframes. For example, if an employee no longer needs some software they can make it available to another employee, but the recipient cannot make the same gesture within a certain timeframe, often as much as 90 days.

Closing the Loop

Once the set of potentially recyclable licenses has been identified, the actual mechanics of transferring the licenses between employees needs to occur. Careful consideration needs to be given to how this is achieved and the financial benefits of license recycling can quickly evaporate if uninstalling from the donor and reinstalling on the recipient environment is not managed correctly. Many tools exist to streamline this process and Scalable produces a popular tool called WinINSTALL that makes it very easy.