WASHINGTON—Today, the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will consider the bipartisan Strengthening Agency Management and Oversight of Software Assets Act (SAMOSAA), sponsored by Sens. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), Chairman of the committee, and Bill Cassidy (R-La.).
NetChoice supports this bipartisan effort to help agencies manage their software spending, save taxpayer dollars, and promote innovation and competition in government IT contracts.
“This bill would prompt federal agencies to get a handle on their current software licenses, as a first step to promote competition and innovation and to save taxpayer dollars. We’re glad to see Sens. Peters and Cassidy lead on promoting productivity and efficiency in the federal government,” said Steve DelBianco, NetChoice President and CEO. “The ‘Strengthening Agency Management and Oversight of Software Assets Act’ is a win for taxpayers, government innovation and market competition.
“Intense competition and innovation among cloud providers, especially those that embrace interoperability and portability, continues to drive costs down while adding new capabilities for government agencies and serving Americans,” continued DelBianco. “But some incumbent software vendors impose restrictive licenses or try to leverage an existing monopoly to create new ones, which limits how customers can take advantage of cloud offerings from the competition.”
SAMOSAA would build on successes already seen from the MEGABYTE Act of 2016 and help government agencies obtain software at the lowest cost to taxpayers.