Software asset management (SAM) becomes an increasingly important priority for IT departments as their organizations grow. Beyond a certain point, it’s impossible to comply with all the licensing terms of each version of every single application without a proactive and comprehensive SAM strategy.

Kris Barker, the co-founder and chief executive officer of Express Metrix, highlights that CIOs must choose the right tool in order to effectively meet his or her company’s compliance requirements and avoid “unacceptable risk.” In Barker’s view, only two kinds of SAM solutions merit consideration: enterprise suites that list asset management among their many features, and specialized point solutions from niche vendors. He outlined the strengths and weaknesses of each product category in a recent entry on Wikibon.

The so-called “do it all” enterprise suites include a wide range of capabilities that enable users to gain an end-to-end view of their organizations’ entire software lifecycle. The fact that these solutions are typically sold by big name firms such as Microsoft and CA offers the added benefit of having a “low-risk proposition.” The downside of these platforms is that SAM is not likely to be the vendor’s primary area of expertise: the asset management functionality may be watered down, and support can often prove lackluster. Another factor to take into account is that these enterprise suites can take up to 18 months to deploy, require dedicated staff, and consume a lot of resources.

Point solutions don’t have these disadvantages. They tend to be smaller and easier to deploy than more comprehensive products, and typically include greater depth of reporting and better support for third party platforms. At the same time, they are unlikely to feature integration with IT management capabilities and will often be met with skepticism by the typical CIO.