In almost all organizations, there is some level of non-compliance when it comes to licensing. It could be a piece of software that some individual installed on their machine or maybe software was rolled out to a group of machines without proper licensing with the intention of getting licenses once software is deployed.

In the past, software development companies have kind of let this slide. Some say, it's because if these few customers were forced to purchase the software they deployed, they would simply not use the software and switch to some other less effective but lower cost option.

The vendors let it go because to them it's market share, for example, if you are using MS Office without licenses, you are just getting your user base tied to using Office. There will be a point when users will start to demand that they have Office if you tried to switch them.

As the economy gets tighter, some of the application developers are starting to feel the pinch and they want this additional revenue that could be had. What this means to you is there is going to be more vigilance from application developers to enforce licensing strictly. Companies that do not have properly licensed software will want to get licensed before application developers start taking action.

This is an opportunity really. Since times are tougher, developers are offering deep discounts to reduce inventory levels. For example, there are deep discounts across the Microsoft stack. Remember, you can do something now, if these developers start taking legal action, then it will be out of everyone's hands and into the hands of the lawyers.

So make sure you know how many licenses you've purchased and how many licenses are in use and before purchasing any new licenses, get with your IT partner to make sure you get all the discounts available.