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posted by janrinok on Tuesday April 07 2015, @02:53AM   Printer-friendly
from the how-to-drive-away-your-customers dept.

El Reg reports (on 27 Mar)

Software providers such as Microsoft and Oracle are aggressively targeting public sector customers with licence "audit reviews" in a bid to plug falling subscription revenue, according to research. Over one-third of the 436 councils surveyed across the UK have been subject to at least one software licence review in the last 20 months, according to a report from software licensing costs advice company Cerno. Of those, 60 per cent were found to be "under-licensed" and hit with a penalty of up to £50,000.

Out of 132 universities, one quarter have been subject to at least one software licence audit in the last 20 months, it said. "This survey confirms considerable activity in licence reviews by the major software vendors - principally Oracle and Microsoft - and, critically, the high incidence of penalty demands following the review," said Robin Fry, co-founder of Cerno.

gewg_ notes that the solution adopted last century by Dave Richards of the City of Largo, Florida and by Ernie Ball, Inc. keep looking better and better. (It cost the California company $100,000 before they saw the light.)

 
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  • (Score: 2) by Gravis on Tuesday April 07 2015, @04:15AM

    by Gravis (4596) on Tuesday April 07 2015, @04:15AM (#167313)

    anything that raises the price of their software is fine by me. it's just one more reason for people to move to libre software.

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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by Whoever on Tuesday April 07 2015, @05:03AM

    by Whoever (4524) on Tuesday April 07 2015, @05:03AM (#167325) Journal

    anything that raises the price of their software is fine by me. it's just one more reason for people to move to libre software.

    This is government offices we are discussing. They will just increase taxes to pay for their own incompetence.