Snow Scores Highest in Gartner 2020 Critical Capabilities Report for SAM Tools in 3 Out of 4 Use Cases
Snow was recently recognized as a Leader in Gartner’s 2020 Magic Quadrant for Software Asset Management Tools1. Now we’re excited to share that Snow also scored highest in three out of the four use cases, and second highest in the other use case, in the Gartner 2020 Critical Capabilities for Software Asset Management Tools2 report.
Gartner’s latest Critical Capabilities report gives a detailed account of how vendors perform against real-world use cases. Per Gartner, “This research complements the “Magic Quadrant for Software Asset Management Tools,” which highlights a broad set of factors, including the corporate viability, vision, marketing and geographic focus of the vendors that offer these SAM products.”
In the report, SAM solutions are scored against four use cases, which can help a wide variety of customers make strategic decisions around their IT strategies and technology investments. Read on for some of the highlights in the report, per our understanding.
PC and On-Premises Licensing
This use case focuses on the management of end user and data center devices, including the ability to decode software entitlements, track software consumption and ensure license compliance through the creation of an effective license position. Snow scored highest among all vendors with a score of 4.11 out of 5.
Organizations that continue to have a significant portion of their workloads in on-premises environments should focus their attention on this use case.
Complex licensing in hybrid environments
Here, Gartner looked at organizations that utilize a mix of environments including on-premises, SaaS, IaaS and PaaS. These would typically be larger organizations with a high number of devices and software titles. This use case recognizes the unique challenges of using a hybrid environment, including the significant risk of license non-compliance and the opportunity to identify software cost reductions upwards of 30%. Snow scored highest among all vendors with a score of 3.94 out of 5.
Complex Licensing in Cloud Primary Environments
Gartner recognizes that certain organizations are largely or even entirely cloud-centric, either having been born-in-the-cloud or from undergoing a significant migration of workloads to SaaS, IaaS and PaaS environments. They have tailored this use case to focus on capabilities such as software consumption in the cloud (typically with the use of agentless discovery), support for the increasing variety of metrics used by cloud vendors and the ability to handle entitlement scenarios that straddle on-premises and cloud, such as Bring Your Own License. Snow scored highest among all vendors with a score of 3.84 out of 5.
Specialty Software
Certain organizations go beyond the more common software titles and need to manage engineering applications such as Autodesk, Dassault Systems and Ansys. For these applications, all of the traditional SAM challenges of consumption tracking, compliance, and optimization remain the same, but they also require an in-depth understanding of the complex licensing requirements used by these vendors.
In addition to engineering applications, Gartner has focused this use case on organizations that seek assistance with their operational technology, including computing and communication systems to manage, monitor and control industrial operations with a focus on the physical devices and processes they use. Snow scored 4.05 out of 5 for this use case, placing second highest among all vendors.
We are very proud of our placement in Gartner’s 2020 Critical Capabilities for Software Asset Management Tools report. At Snow, we see the world ahead as full of opportunity for SAM, IT Ops, FinOps and DevOps. And as an expert in the industry, we want to work with our customers to usher in the next evolution of SAM and build solutions that will help them as their technology needs shift. We’ll continue to see how the market evolves, but for now, we’re excited about what’s next.
Be sure to check out the full report to get all the details behind Gartner’s 2020 evaluation.
1 Gartner, “Magic Quadrant for Software Asset Management Tools” by Ryan Stefani. July 20, 2020.
2 Gartner, Software Asset Management Critical Capabilities Report, by Ryan Stefani, July 28, 2020
3 This graphic was published by Gartner, Inc. as part of a larger research document and should be evaluated in the context of the entire document. The Gartner document is available upon request from Snow.
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