Software asset management (SAM) tools vendor Centennial Software today launched a new offering designed to enable firms to control their software licensing more effectively, save money and reduce risk.

SAM.Suite features the latest version of the firm's flagship Centennial Discovery product alongside a fully integrated new offering called License Manager, that together enable firms to cover the entire lifecycle from software audit to compliance reporting, according to the firm's Matt Fisher.

"In the customer community SAM is growing in prominence – people are understanding the opportunities to save money where they're over-licensed and there's a healthy fear of being audited by vendors or watchdogs," he added.

The updated version of Centennial Discovery includes enhancements to software recognition capabilities, while License Manager allows firms to audit their network but filter out the information that isn't relevant.

SAM.Suite also offers multiple users in various departments across an organisation to be involved with asset management, improving the effectiveness of their SAM activities, explained Fisher.

The product's other major differentiator is that it can adapt to the constantly changing nature of enterprise networks with a new feature which reconciles manually collated information with an online database, flagging up any anomalies.

"Most vendors take individual applications and create a link between them and individual licenses," argued Fisher. "But this doesn't take account of the fact that the network is dynamic, with new PCs coming on and being retired and software being installed and uninstalled all the time."

David Mitchell of analyst Ovum argued that SAM is now "one of the hottest areas of the market" because the vendors and industry watchdogs are becoming evermore stringent with their audits.

"The rough percentage of those enterprises who have the appropriate level of licensing is zero," he added. "SAM tools help you know in advance if you have any issues so you can fix them at your pace."