Microsoft banks on SAM

Shivangi Yadav Gurgaon, Oct 5

Microsoft is very soon planning to rollout a new initiative to
engage a varied cross section of channel community across the country. The
Software Asset Management (SAM) program is targeted at both mid segment
customers and also at the Enterprise Partner Group (EPG).

Talking about SAM and what it does, Brian J Campbell, Director-Genuine
Software Initiative, Microsoft India said, "As Indian companies go global
and more and more international companies make a beeline for India, what is
surprising is how not many companies are tracking the state of the software that
they are using. Internationally, software asset management is considered a
critical part of the business because the moment any software crashes, you end
up losing not only time and data but also money, and in some cases businesses.
In this age of 24x7, where there is no chance of a downtime, any company that
faces a massive hitch in its working is going to end up making huge losses. So
in that scenario, the management of your software becomes a critical thing and
that is what SAM will do for a company."

Elaborating further about the benefits of SAM, Campbell added,
"Started in early 90's in US, it is an ISO recognized process that helps
you recognize what you've got, where it's running, where it can best be
utilized, what overlap you may have and what's needed in terms of licensing
documentation, and how can this specifically benefit your business? SAM has
already been implemented across US and Europe and dramatic ground has been
gained. It basically makes you realize the value that is attached to IPR and as
India does more and more global business, good governance will become critical,
making SAM essential."

Discussing how channel partners can benefit from this new
initiative, Campbell said, "SAM is targeted at mid and upper-mid market,
apart from the enterprises. While the big enterprises might be a different ball
game, for the mid and upper-mid market, we will rely on the channel partner
community. How SAM is beneficial for them is that it is not a one-time exercise
but a yearly recurring service. A pull through activity, it will help channel
partners build continuous engagement with their customers."

The company is planning big things to build up SAM in India.
"The first thing will be to build up a channel base to support SAM in
India. We are in fact looking at engaging quite a few national level players for
this activity apart from players in the regions. That apart we have to build up
point of sales, and for the same we are planning to launch an integrated
communication program starting this month to educate people about how SAM is
beneficial for their business."

When questioned about the money that the company has planned for
market spend to drive this new initiative Campbell averred, "It is
difficult to give out figures but from the total budget, the largest percentage
of money goes for our communication activities in engaging partners and
end-customers alike."

Dithering on putting a specific date for rollout of this new
program, Campbell said, "At the moment we are building the activity
internally, hiring and training people who can then go out and evangelize about
SAM. We have some experts coming in from UK in October, and thus we should be
out with out first case studies for the EPG segment in November or December this
year."