Who is the BSA?
You may have heard their radio advertisements encouraging disgruntled employees to report unauthorized uses of software. While these ads may seem easy to ignore, the Business Software Alliance is an international organization whose members include the likes of Adobe, Borland, Microsoft, Network Associates, HP, IBM, Intel, Symantec and other software makers.

These companies use the BSA to help them enforce the terms of their end user license agreements. Another organization similar to the BSA is the Software and Information Industry Association (formerly known as the Software Publishers Association).

There are many ways an organization can inadvertently or unintentionally fall out of compliance with its software licenses and/or obtain illegal software. For example, a software license may only allow 50 users to use the software at any given time. If an organization has 51 users using the software, it is in violation of the license agreement and has committed copyright infringement. Another way an organization may be violating the terms of a software license is by installing on a network software licensed only for use on a personal computer, or by permitting employees to install copies of software at home and on laptops. Also, employees or independent contractors may bring pirated software into the work place, for example, by unknowingly downloading illegal copies of software from the Internet (according to the BSA, a high percentage of the software sold through online auctions is illegal).

The Perfect Solution
One excellent way to take care of this problem once and for all is to use Open Source Software.

Open Source Software is among other things free to distribute, and also allows access to the source code, so that it can be modified. These qualities make it stand head and shoulders above proprietary software in many areas, including Linux as an operating system, the OpenOffice office suite and Mozilla's web browser.

Hal-Com can evaluate your needs and help you decide if Open Source Software is the way to go. Contact us for more information.