Open iT: Trusted Partner to Meter, Analyze, Optimize Software, Cloud and SaaS Usage

Founded in 1999, Open iT, Inc. produces industry-leading software metering and optimization solutions for managing license and application usage. Many Fortune 500 companies in Oil and Gas, Aerospace, Automotive, and other engineering-based markets use Open iT to fully understand and manage their true use of application software across the organization. From the individual user and team, up through the division level and globally, Open iT reporting and application management facilitates optimal resource utilization and availability, software licensing position, and internal cost allocation. Open iT leads the market in its breadth of supported applications, delivering optimized application financial control with application availability. 

Software application publishers use Open iT for recognizing sales revenue based on the actual metered use of software at the customer site or in a cloud environment. Extending conventional software licensing and tokens with pay-per-use agreements enables software publishers to meet customer demands for increased cost control and on-demand application access.

Gartner recently published its 2021 Market Guide for (SAM) Software Asset Management Tools, Sept. 20. Part of the guide is a list of representative vendors, in which Open iT is listed under two categories, namely SAM Tools for Engineering and Specialty Software and SAM Tools for SAP.    

Created by analysts Ryan Stefani and Jaswant Kalay, the Software Asset Management Tools guide defines SAM tools as products that optimize SaaS and software spend while providing support to required tasks for maintaining SaaS subscription use rights and software compliance. It finds that there is currently no single tool that can address all the customers’ needs due to SAM’s varying scope and complexity, which will be the trend for some time. Because of this, Gartner clients are looking into more SAM tools with the capability to automate or reduce the amount of time necessary to manage complex on-premise licenses.

Helping Equinor Achieve Results

Equinor is an integrated oil and gas company with headquarters in Norway and branch offices in 28 countries. Since 1998, Equinor has deployed Open iT for usage reporting on their multi-million dollar software investment, to manage software licenses used for exploration, reservoir management, drilling, production, business-decision analysis and data management.

Annually, Equinor pays for a wide range of software licenses used in exploration, production, project management and many other work applications. Access, training and support are crucial for achieving optimal efficiency in the usage of these applications. Equinor searched for a license administration tool to aid these processes in the company. An overview was needed, not only of purchased and installed software, but also showing how software was being used: many technical applications were used intensively at times and rarely at others. Accurate software usage analysis was needed to allow Equinor to negotiate flexible license agreements.

Open iT LicenseAnalyzer provided Equinor with the billing flexibility they were looking for and many of their applications are now paid for based on actual usage. Open iT LicenseAnalyzer monitors the company’s software usage continually and stores statistics in a secure database, preventing the data from being manipulated with program vendors. Measurements taken from all of Equinor’s offices are stored in signed and encrypted read-only logs. The logs are then aggregated in reports and delivered to software vendors who use the reports for billing for actual software usage. Additionally, Equinor has realized significant savings by cancelling maintenance agreements and discontinuing excess licenses for software no longer in use.

Equinor has an important goal: to build up a solid support apparatus for employees using software. They have organized work groups according to different processes used and have delegated responsibility for application training and integration to each process group manager. Open iT LicenseAnalyzer, through reports showing how the same software is used by different users, has helped these managers identify which users need the most support and training. This information allows them to focus their efforts where they are needed most, enabling them to see the needs of previously more invisible users as well as the more demanding ones. Balancing users’ competing needs helps managers ensure the overall success of the application implementation process. Furthermore, Open iT LicenseAnalyzer reports help managers constantly measure their progress and evaluate and update their plans.

"Open iT Software has helped us to limit our software investment to the most necessary and profitable software," said Peter Eilsø, Chief Researcher for Petroleum Technology, Equinor.

The Leader

Eistein Fosli, Founder and CEO

Eistein Fosli's utilitarian solutions for resource optimization, IT cost efficiency, and strategic organizational management have paved the way for the success of Open iT, Inc. The company's decade-long position as a market leader is a product of his rich experience: theoretical knowledge gained through a Master of Science in Informatics from the University of Oslo, combined with 10 years of operational support and training as consultant for Statoil, Hydro, Shell and Telenor. Eistein is a dedicated company founder and executive who provides valuable guidance on software development and contributes to business development.

"Software application publishers use Open iT for recognizing sales revenue based on the actual metered use of software at the customer site or in a cloud environment."