jannine asked a question.
SNOW Application Category
Currently SNOW License Manager is not populating the categories such as Freeware, Commercial, Shareware and others compared to FlexNet Manager. Is this something that SNOW don't offer on it's platform?
Snow License Manager includes in its application database information about whether an application requires a license or not (Under "List All Applications" > see column "License Required").
But on any platform (not just SLM), this needs to be taken with a pinch of salt: an application marked or given to you as Freeware does not necessarily mean that the application is always freeware. This is the reason why SLM allows you to edit the field locally.
Also, I am not sure, in the context of a Software Asset Management practice, for what tasks you would rely on, or even need this information.
Could you provide more context so we can see how best we can help you find what you need?
Thank you for the inputs, my main here are those obvious applications that are considered to be a Freeware but since SNOW doesn't have a column to identify the category of an application the only way is under License metric. There are applications that are tagged as License required which is supposed to be "No License required"
Also, there's application category column but it's empty. Hoping it would at least identify correct application category such as commercial , freeware, component and rest of other category
Hi Jannine,
I agree that sometimes the "License Required" field seems incorrect, but we have seen many opportunities where an application can be paid OR free, depending on the use, the type of business, the features you use, etc ...
As a result, there will be situations where you will need to check and maybe edit this field in SLM, after all, there is a reason why Snow made this field editable 😉
This highlights the importance of a proper control of software installation by either policy or technical enforcement, to ensure that the IT department is aware of new software installed. Then the Software Asset Management team steps in and examine the real license requirement.
Application Category is something different, it indicates roughly what the purpose of the application is. The list comes from a doc about software standards, can't remember which.
Hi Samuel,
Thank you again for the response and I also agree if you mean that each application is depending on the use of the business and contract as well but each application has different editions which could be the source of how it should be categorize.
There are applications that versions could be the source of the application category.
Example:
Standard Google - which is obviously a free application / open source
Google Workspace Standard, Plus and Enterprise - commercial application
Notepad ++ - free application / open-source
UltraEdit enterprise - commercial
As I see, the Application Types in SNOWLM shows the purpose of the application or the core function, correct me if I am wrong.
This discussion mainly seeing the difference of SNOWLM and FlexeraOne but both are in one umbrella? But we do understand the those difference it's just that there are columns in SNOWLM that remains empty like Application Categories.