Without a Software Center to keep track of and store software media, chaos reigns. Technical professionals are unable to do their jobs when they do not have access to needed media. Those who do find needed media often keep it at the exclusion of others.
If you have ever walked through an IT department you have no doubt seen CDs on desks or software packages on shelves of trusting people. All too often I heard the frustrations when those CDs and packages disappeared, and of CDs strewn on desks being scratched, rendering them useless.
I’ve also known of CDs being taken out of CD drives and unlocked desk drawers. This results in lost productivity and added expense to replace the CD, as well as contributing to a stressful, frustrating work environment. Centralizing software media storage to enhance technical staff efficiency is one of the huge money saving areas of a SAM program. It is one of those areas that is very difficult to quantify.
These are examples of e-mails I received from technical professionals after implementing a Software Center, then called Software Library.
“Rita, the Software Library you created made my floor technician job much easier. The software I needed was always there.” -O. L.
“Starting the Software Library made my job easier because you always had the software I needed to do my job.” -J. Z.
One incident I observed while setting up a Software Center involved three highly paid contracted developers. They expected to find a needed CD in the Software Center. However, someone didn’t turn the CD in to the Center. Those three developers spend three days looking for the CD, costing the company over $7,000.00 in lost time, a delay in completing the project, and unnecessary stress and frustration for the developers. This is very common.
Another incident I observed involved CDs that had been checked out to an IT Engineer. He left the CDs on his desk. The next morning these CDs were found on the desk of a QA tester, on a different floor of the building, who had been pirating applications out of the company over the network. Also, IT development personnel sent applications to their home machines thinking no one would know. During the next hardware refresh, managers asked their people which applications they needed for their new machines. The user’s reports were sent to the Software Center to allow access to the applications. A comparison of software license assignments with the user reports showed glaring differences for some people. These people forgot which applications they had pirated. The managers were given the choice of authorizing purchases or denying access.
When software deliveries are delivered to users, the software is often registered to themselves, not to the company. The media also sprouts legs and follows the user out the door. In the early days of setting up this same Software Center, Shipping and Receiving was instructed to deliver all software deliveries to the Software Center. After registering it to the company and logging the details in a database, the user was notified that the package had arrived. Many users said that the company had bought the application for them…a gift… that the application belonged to them! A new element to user education was needed. This is much like the early days of PCs when users argued that a PC was a “Personal Computer” and they could do what they wanted with it.
