Movers & Shakers: Livingstone, Siwel, Derive Logic, Comparex, Flexera Software, License Dashboard & Netum

05 April 2019
4 minute read
ITAM News & Analysis

Movers & Shakers: Livingstone, Siwel, Derive Logic, Comparex, Flexera Software, License Dashboard & Netum

05 April 2019
4 minute read

A quick round-up of ITAM industry news:

UK SAM Services company Livingstone Technologies acquires USA SAM Services company Siwel. A great move – I’ve spoken to a number of Fortune 500 companies seeking the services of an independent provider (No commercial bias from selling SAM tools or Licensing profit / incentives) – yet unable to find one with enough clout. I plan to review SAM Managed Service providers again in 2019, it will be interesting to see how the market has evolved.

Similarly, having run the ITSM Review for five years, we saw a similar trajectory of ITSM service partners holding onto the coat tails of ServiceNow’s growth, with subsequent growth and consolidation of their partner base. I foresee similar growth and consolidation in the ITAM industry as we see partners on both sides of the pond armouring themselves to deliver SAM services for ServiceNow. If SAM follows the same growth path as ITSM, then not only will you see growth and consolidation of partners, but you will also see SAM partners with vertical specialisation and building their own IP around the ServiceNow platform.

Derive Logic, a UK SAM services company notable for selling services to other partners, receives backing from the Carlisle Group, the same company bank rolling Livingstone’s growth. A straightforward exit for Carlisle Group to get their money back would be to build an international SAM service provider (built of the likes of Derive, Siwel, Livingstone) and flip it to a larger integrator or big4 consulting firm, who wants to buy a “bench” of expertise at delivering SAM. Owners of small growing SAM services companies, form an orderly queue!

The brand “Comparex” disappears as competition authorities bless the acquisition by SoftwareOne and it merges with the Swiss licensing and software services giant.

Mixed messages from Flexera Software, as on the one hand they report being the “Tech Unicorn of Chicago” whilst also reportedly laying off the entire APAC team (notably Japan and Australia). Flexera PR declined to comment on either news. I was particularly interested to know of Flexera’s underlying growth excluding the Rightscale and Installshield business i.e. The traditional SAM business. Luckily Flexera staff seem to have found homes in Crayon, SoftwareOne and others across APAC.

SAM industry veteran Sean Robinson returns to License Dashboard after a four-year break as Sales Director.

Netum Dux Product Launch

Left to Right: Netum Oy CEO Matti Mujunen, Martin Thompson ITAM Review, Ville Lappalainen Dux Product Manager, Kauko Ollila Freelance Journalist

Finally, I was fortunate to be invited to Netum’s product launch of Dux, in Helsinki this week. A “self-updating” asset register with cool location tracking offering that aims to address the much-underserved asset lifecycle tracking market (Once covered by Gartner with its own quadrant, now taking a back seat to SAM tools).

I remember evangelising about the business value of location in the early 2000’s – great for support and security, being able to locate a device to a building or even a country. If a Switch was located in New York, it figures that all the ports must be located in New York and therefore devices hanging off those ports must be New York, and so on. This message kind of lost its way a little with the advent of Laptop/Wifi centric networks.

Netum’s offering of using Wifi to identify device location within one metre within an office will have great use for some specific use cases, perhaps for IoT too. Just this month I spoke with someone regarding a hospital spending millions on replacement kit they simply couldn’t find.

Any other industry news to share – please shout. Thanks, Martin

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