In brief: CA bolsters asset management

Computer Associates last week pumped up its asset management suite with a software application the company says will help customers more quickly search assets to determine usage and license information.

The package consists of a Web-based application that serves as a front end to other management applications and data resources. Unicenter Asset Intelligence r11 can tap information CA's Unicenter Asset Management collects, which is necessary to run Asset Intelligence. Asset Management collects asset data such as software versions and usage numbers, and Asset Intelligence applies analysis to it, which lets users run reports and perform searches. Pricing for Unicenter Asset Intelligence r11 starts at about $50,000.

After more than two years of review and deliberation, a key Web standards consortium has revised its intellectual property policy, and forced contributors to declare whether they plan to collect royalties on work they submit to the organization's technical committees. The Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards will implement the change on April 15.

Under the new policy, OASIS' current technical committees will have two years to declare whether the standards they are developing are being released under royalty-free terms, which don't let patent holders charge for their intellectual property. Committees formed after April 15 must declare their IP policy upon creation.

 The point of the policy change is to simplify things for companies or developers by giving them a clear statement about whether they could pay royalties on software based on the consortium's standards, says OASIS Board of Directors Chair Jim Hughes. The new policy ultimately will make it more difficult for standards contributors to charge for patents.