Software license audit defense. Led by former vendor auditors, settled on evidence.

Software license audit defense starts the day a vendor or its auditor makes contact: a data request, a questionnaire, or findings with a settlement figure attached. The opening number is built on worst case assumptions, and how the first weeks are run decides where it lands.

Our founders ran audit and licensing engagements on the vendor side, at Oracle license management services and at IBM. They know how a claim is assembled, which assumptions inflate it, and which evidence takes it apart.

They start high because the vendor sets every assumption in its own favor until someone challenges it. The same patterns inflate claims across vendors:

• Worst case counting: opening claims priced at list, on full capacity or full headcount assumptions, and timed to renewals.
• Open scope: letters that do not fence entities, countries, period or products, so every silence resolves in the auditor's favor.
• Early disclosures made without protocol, which become the foundation of the claim.
• Interpretations presented as fact, and findings steered toward the purchase the vendor wanted anyway.
• Settlements without release language, leaving the claim free to regenerate at the next cycle.

Compliance gaps also accumulate before any letter: virtualization, disaster recovery and metric changes create exposure nobody measured, and evidence sits scattered, so even correct positions cannot be proven.

A partner leads every audit defense from the first letter to the signed settlement. Both founders worked audits from the vendor side before founding Redress, which is why we read the letter the way the auditor wrote it.

Vendor specialists join where the estate needs them, including Piaras McDonnell (IBM Practice Lead), who leads mainframe and middleware audit defense. See the Redress management team.

It runs protocol first: control the channel, build your own number, then challenge theirs. The response protocol is delivered within 3 business days of engagement start.

The auditors changed, and so did what they count. These are the shifts documented in current Redress research:

• New leaders: in a Redress survey of 118 enterprises, Broadcom led the audit table at 33 percent, followed by Autodesk at 29, Microsoft at 27 and Oracle Java at 25. Vendors in the middle of subscription transitions now lead the table.
• Oracle Java: Oracle now audits Java SE on employee count, not installs, under the Universal Subscription. See the Oracle Java licensing guide for 2026 and Oracle Java audit defense.
• Microsoft: the 2026 audit reads your cloud tenant before your servers, and opening claims overstated the gap by 20 to 40 percent, mostly on server cores and idle cloud seats.
• SAP: audit volume rose into 2026, with RISE conversion, indirect access and named user reclassification driving the largest findings. The SAP license audit process for 2026 explains each phase.
• IBM: ILMT was missing or stale in two of three estates we reviewed, which turns sub capacity rights into a full capacity bill.

One constant held: audits where the defense engaged in week one settled 15 to 25 percent lower than those where the buyer waited 30 days or more.

Four published audit outcomes across Oracle Java and IBM, each documented on its case study page:

The best defender is one with no stake in what you buy to settle. A neutral comparison of the usual options:

Our independent versus Big Four comparison covers the conflict questions to put to any firm before an audit.

Audit defense runs on a fixed fee, scoped to the vendor and the audit and agreed up front. The cost is known on day one, while the claim is not.

We never bill by the hour, so a long audit does not raise the fee. If the settlement turns into a renewal or purchase negotiation, that part can run on a success fee. It is 25 percent of what we save you, with nothing to pay if we save nothing.

Each vendor has its own audit defense service, with vendor specific protocols and evidence:

• Oracle audit defense: LMS and GLAS audits across Database and middleware
• Oracle Java audit defense
• Microsoft audit defense
• SAP audit defense
• SAP indirect access defense
• IBM audit defense
• Broadcom VMware audit defense

Before a letter arrives, run the free audit defense readiness checklist. Related services:

• Software licensing consultants: the entitlement position a defense depends on
• Software asset and spend management consulting
• Software contract and vendor negotiation services
• Enterprise software renewal services
• IT vendor management and procurement consulting