At their best, software audits, during which vendors check a customer’s network for unlicensed users, are legitimate procedures that let software companies conduct the kind of due diligence that their business demands. After all, licensing agreements are complicated documents whose restrictions could be misunderstood, either innocently or not so innocently. But at their worst, software audits can be intimidating confrontations that give vendors an opportunity to strongarm users—all in the name of compliance—into signing licensing deals that benefit the vendor, not the user.
How intimidating are the auditors? Here is a sentence from a letter sent to IT managers by the Business Software Alliance, an organization that helps Microsoft and other large software companies ferret out unlicensed software: “The penalties for copyright infringement are serious—sometimes totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars—and in this economy, can you business afford that risk?”

For years, relatively impartial observers such as Gartner have been advising software users to remain cool in the face of such audit threats. In May 2001, a Gartner research note reported that “in many cases, we have heard of audits being threatened as a sales tactic when Enterprise Agreements are being evaluated.”

And last year, a Gartner advisory called “Surviving a Software Vendor Audit” warned that “Many vendors will try intimidation to force you to buy licenses.”

Here at CIO.com, we’ve heard similar things from IT executives: audits are often understood to be the stick held by vendors, and signing on the dotted line of a continued Enterprise Agreement is the best way to avoid a sound beating. As the Business Software Alliance reminds us, times are tough. But if what we hear is true, the business practices of some of the world’s biggest software companies are even tougher.

Could it be true? Do vendors use threats of software audits to persuade users to sign new Enterprise Agreements? Tell us your story.

Sound Off is a weekly column about current IT-related issues. Web Editorial Director Art Jahnke (ajahnke@cio.com) always welcomes feedback.