The group behind the ISO standard for software asset management (SAM) will next month release a toolkit to help firms assess their processes.

Not-for-profit group Investors In Software (IIS) helped draft the specification for ISO 19770-1, the global standard for SAM, and its members include Microsoft, Symantec, Ernst & Young and Autodesk.

IIS said the toolkit offers a repository with “gap analysis” to measure the effectiveness of SAM processes. Firms are turning to SAM processes to manage increasingly complex software and licensing. Platform heterogeneity, different versions of applications, outsourcing and in-house programs all complicate the issue.

Some firms in software asset discovery said a uniform approach to describing assets would be a boon. “Lack of standardisation is one reason why there’s a market for discovery software – it’s very hard to do,” said Kosten Metreweli, marketing vice-president of Tideway Systems, a developer of configuration management software.

“The desktop tends to be a little easier to pin down but in the datacentre you have multiple platforms and there’s no standard for identifying and versioning. Customers have tended to err on the side of caution [in paying software licences] and that has played into the hands of the vendors. Anything that makes software assets more standardised is welcome.”

Part two of the ISO 19770 standard could be published within 18 to 24 months, IIS said.

Virdi also suggested that, in future, IT suppliers should financially reward customers that demonstrate a best-practice approach to SAM. “It’s like the Advanced Driving Test,” he said. “If you’re a better driver you receive cheaper insurance.”