NEO Insights became a lot faster

We’ve always been obsessed with quality. When we first launched NEO Insights, we made a deliberate choice: deliver the most reliable, in-depth analysis possible. We spared no expense on token cost, processing time, and analysis to ensure every report provided genuinely valuable, actionable intelligence. Quality was king, and we nailed it. But it came with…

Read More

Software Price Increases 2025 – 2026

The enterprise software landscape in 2025 and 2026 continues to experience aggressive price increases that fundamentally challenge IT budget planning and procurement strategies. This comprehensive analysis reveals an industry-wide escalation driven by AI monetization, subscription model enforcement, the removal of legacy volume discounts, and continued post-acquisition restructuring. From Microsoft’s sweeping M365 increases to VMware’s ongoing…

Read More

Why Traditional SAM Tools Make You Wait Weeks for Answers

Your CIO wants answers about Oracle compliance by Friday. Your SAM tool says it needs three weeks to generate the report. This isn’t a data problem, it’s an architecture problem that treats urgency as an edge case rather than the default operating mode. The tools marketed as enterprise solutions have trained organizations to accept operational…

Read More

What Executives Actually Need From SAM During Renewal Negotiations

Renewal negotiations tend to expose uncomfortable truths about how software asset management actually works inside an enterprise. On paper, the organization may have a mature SAM program. Tools are deployed. Data is collected. Reports exist. Yet when a renewal accelerates or a vendor challenges assumptions, executives often discover that the answers they need are not…

Read More

The Hidden Cost of Waiting for SAM Reports During Renewals

When the Clock Runs Out Before the Data Arrives Your enterprise renewal deadline is three weeks away. You own a comprehensive SAM platform, licenses for every major publisher, and a compliance framework that passed last year’s audit. Yet here you sit, unable to answer the most basic negotiation question: what are we actually using? This…

Read More

How Audit Pressure Exposes What Dashboards Hide

Audits don’t introduce new risk. They surface risk that already exists. What changes is the timing. When timelines compress, ambiguity becomes expensive, and every assumption is tested in front of executives, legal, and procurement at once. The boardroom goes quiet when legal forwards the audit letter. Suddenly, every software license, every deployed instance, every entitled…

Read More

The Modern Guide to AI-Powered Software Rationalization

In the digital-first economy of 2026, software isn’t just a tool; it’s the engine of business. But for many organizations, that engine is cluttered, inefficient, and burning cash. Unused licenses, redundant applications, and sprawling cloud subscriptions create a significant financial drain and a growing security risk. This is the high cost of software sprawl, and…

Read More

How 🔵 NEO Automates Vendor Consolidation (The ‘Rule of One’)

In the world of enterprise software, complexity is the enemy of efficiency. When your teams are using three different project management tools, four different business intelligence platforms, and a half-dozen collaboration apps, you’re not just wasting money on redundant licenses. You’re creating data silos, fragmenting workflows, and frustrating your employees. The solution is a simple…

Read More

How to Choose a SAM Tool in 2026: A Buyer’s Guide

In 2026, selecting a Software Asset Management (SAM) tool is one of the most critical technology decisions an organization can make. The right tool can save you millions in software spend, eliminate compliance risks, and provide the strategic intelligence needed to navigate complex digital transformations. The wrong tool can lock you into an expensive, inflexible…

Read More

Digital Sovereignty: A Guide for European Enterprises

In an era defined by data, the question of who controls that data has become one of the most critical strategic issues for European enterprises. Digital sovereignty, the ability for a nation or entity to have control over its own digital destiny, is no longer an abstract political concept. It is a fundamental business imperative,…

Read More

How to Build a Winning Business Case for a New SAM Tool

You know you have a problem. Your software costs are spiraling, you have no real visibility into your license compliance, and your team is drowning in spreadsheets trying to manage it all. You know that a modern, AI-powered Software Asset Management (SAM) tool is the answer, but to get the funding, you need to convince…

Read More

How to Pass Your Next Software Audit: A 90-Day Preparation Plan

For most IT and procurement leaders, the letter from a major software vendor announcing an impending license audit is a moment of pure dread. A software audit is a disruptive, time-consuming, and often incredibly expensive process that can divert your team from strategic projects for months and result in unbudgeted true-up fees running into the…

Read More

A Deep Dive into NEO’s Red Hat Enterprise Linux Optimization Report

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is the backbone of modern enterprise IT, prized for its stability, security, and performance. However, managing a large RHEL estate is a complex undertaking fraught with hidden risks and costs. Organizations often struggle with lifecycle management, OS standardization, infrastructure inefficiency, and the constant threat of backdating penalties from subscription gaps.…

Read More

A Deep Dive into NEO’s Oracle DB Optimization Report

Oracle databases are the powerful, reliable workhorses of the enterprise, but they are also a source of immense complexity and cost. Managing an Oracle estate is a high-stakes balancing act between ensuring compliance, controlling spend, and planning for the future. The central challenge is a lack of clarity. Without a clear, data-driven picture of your…

Read More

W3 SAM & ITAM Jobs | #ITAMjobs

Happy New Year everyone, Here are this week’s Software Asset Management & IT Asset Management career opportunities. Whether you’re an experienced professional or just starting, there’s something for everyone. If you’re trying to fill some positions or looking for your dream job in the industry, hit that follow button or slide into our DMs for more updates…

Read More

ITAM & SAM Job Market Insights

2025 Software Asset Management Job Market Report Executive Summary 547 Job Postings Analyzed 40+ Countries Represented $95K Median US Salary 48% Hybrid Work Model Key Findings ServiceNow dominates: 45% of all postings require ServiceNow SAM Pro experience, making it the most critical platform skill. Hybrid is the new standard: 48% of roles offer hybrid work…

Read More

LICENSEWARE @ CES Las Vegas 🇺🇸

🎉 Exciting news! Licenseware is heading to CES 2026 in Las Vegas as part of the Romanian IT Pavilion! 🇷🇴 We’re thrilled to represent Romania’s thriving tech ecosystem at the world’s most influential technology event, taking place January 6-9, 2026. Where to find us: 📍 Venetian Expo, Halls A-D | Booth 50768 At CES, we’ll be showcasing how…

Read More

Software Rationalization Playbook

Why Software Rationalization Breaks Down at Enterprise Scale Software rationalization does not fail due to lack of intent or intelligence. It fails because of structural realities in large organisations: software data is spread across multiple, imperfect sources, no single tool ever confirms the full picture, software enters the estate faster than governance can react, and…

Read More

From Copilot to Coworker: Licensing the New Digital Workforce

For the past thirty years, the “seat” has been the atomic unit of the software industry. You hired a human, you provisioned a laptop, and you bought a User Subscription License (USL). The math was linear: Headcount = License Count. But as we move deeper into the AI era, that equation is breaking. With the…

Read More

Robots.txt is Now a License Agreement: The New Rules of Data Licensing

The era of “Fair Use” scraping is officially closing. A new extension to the web’s standard exclusion protocol, robots.txt 2.0 (via the Automated Content Access Protocol extensions), now enables publishers to attach granular pricing models to their content. For AI firms accustomed to unrestricted data harvesting, this shift from “Opt-Out” to “Pay-per-Output” represents a catastrophic…

Read More