Microsoft and its product suits are household names in India. Individuals and businesses of all sizes, from SMEs to large scale corporations mostly rely on Microsoft products for daily operations. These products however, come under a license which is a must have if you own a computer. However, these licenses are often misunderstood, neglected or purposely not procured due to the costs, especially considering the vast difference in rates in USD and INR.

This situation leads to licensing issues, and bad performance in terms of Microsoft deployed products. Microsoft on its part has appointed various third-party licensing consultants to monitor and review SME, IT & Software companies & Corporates to set their books in order with regards to licenses of software.

This process is called the Software Asset Management Engagement Review (SAM ‘Uncle’) – a subtle way of redefining the menacing ‘Audit’ in a company. The procedure is fairly comparable to allowing someone to poke their noses right into your business enterprise whether you like it or not.

Now one may think why such an email came to their inbox; should one strike the panic button, or not? Isn’t it an invasion of my business dealings and secrets of the company?