Federal agencies spend billions of dollars on software purchases and license updates every year. Image: monticello/Shutterstock.com
By: FEDweek StaffA bipartisan bill (S-1956) has been reintroduced in the Senate aiming to improve how federal agencies purchase and manage software by requiring them to conduct independent, comprehensive assessments of their software licensing purchases and develop plans to save costs.
“These assessments will provide Congress, the Office of Management and Budget and the General Services Administration with critical insights to strengthen oversight of software contracts, streamline operations and reduce wasteful spending,” sponsors said in a statement.
“Federal agencies spend billions of dollars on software purchases and license updates every year. Agencies’ lack of visibility of what they have already purchased, combined with the way vendors sell software, often leads to duplicative purchases and limits agencies’ ability to conduct their own oversight of these purchases,” they said.
In the prior Congress, a similar bill passed the House and a Senate committee but fell short of final enactment.
The measure is a follow-up to the 2016 “Megabyte Act” for reducing duplicative software purchases and improving software management practice.
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