License Profiling

License Profiling is the process of establishing a company’s software license ownership position. It sounds simple enough, until you delve into what’s involved.

Start with any reasonably large organization in the world, and then think of every possible entity or subsidiary that may have purchased software on behalf of that organization. Now think of every possible spelling and/or arrangement of names that those purchases may have been recorded under. Throw a number of different languages into the mix, and you’re starting to get a feel for the can of worms that Holistics is accustomed to dealing with. Add to this picture the complexity of most software licensing arrangements, and you can understand why many organizations consign this process to the “too hard basket.”

Holistics made it all a lot easier back in 2002, when we invented CLARET (the Customer Licensing And REconciliation Tool) for Microsoft. CLARET made it possible to establish a consolidated license ownership position for any given company in a matter of hours, effectively making this information available in real-time for any Microsoft customer. Nowadays, these reports are known as Microsoft License Statements, or "MLS."

Since CLARET’s development we’ve documented over 30,000 license positions for companies from every corner of the world, so we can probably help with your particular can of worms as well!