Remedies: Cut Costs On New Licenses, Maintenance

How can businesses reduce software waste and save money? Look to what software can be re-used to avoid buying more, the 1E report suggests.

"Even at a conservative reclamation rate of 75 percent of unused software and a minimal purchase rate of 10 percent annually, purchase avoidance due to reuse of harvested software is estimated to be greater than $182 per user," 1E says, or nearly three-quarters of the $247-per-end-user cost.

Further, businesses can cut another $45 per end user by cutting maintenance on software that's not being used.