ITIL 

Providing a comprehensive set of best practice guidance, ITIL is one of the most widely accepted and used approaches to IT service management.
IT Service Management is driven by technology and a vast range of organizational environments in which it operates. ITIL is in a state of constant evolution and currently the revised version in use is V.2.

There are nine ITIL books and disciplines which are:

1. Service Delivery
2. Service Support
3. ICT Infrastructure Management
4. Security Management
5. The Business Perspective
6. Application Management
7. Software Asset Management
8. Planning to Implement Service Management

And this has more recently been supplemented with guidelines for smaller IT units, not included in the original eight publications:

9. ITIL Small-Scale Implementation

Public and private organizational environments across the world report that the following benefits can be derived through implementing the proven best practice processes in ITIL:

• reduced costs
• improved IT services
• improved customer satisfaction
• standards and guidance
• Increased productivity
• improved use of skills and experience

Some well-known organizations using ITIL are:

• Microsoft
• IBM
• Procter & Gamble
• British Airways
• Hewlett Packard

ISO 19770-1

The International Organization for Standardization ("ISO") and the International Electro technical Commission ("IEC") released International Standard 19770-1 on May 1, 2006.
It is said by ISO that the "...Standard 19770-1 establishes a baseline for an integrated set of processes for [SAM]."

The standard divides the processes into three main categories with a set of subsets that give guidance to achieve a solid software asset management plan.

1. Organizational Processes
   a. SAM control environment
   b. SAM planning and implementation
   
   
2. Core SAM Processes
   a. SAM inventory processes
   b. SAM verification and compliance processes
   c. SAM operations management and interfaces for SAM
   
   
3. Primary Process Interfaces.
   a. Management and review of the SAM processes

The essential of the ISO 19770-1 are found in the "Inventory" and "Verification and Compliance" processes together. As these processes are most directly related to assessment of an organization's ownership and proper use of software assets they are the basis for ensuring compliance.

Although ISO 19770-1 lists out the process that an organization should implement and the goals that the organization should have in mind in when doing so, leaving the specifics of implementing those processes up to the organization themselves. They offer no approved checklists or schedules included with the standard itself, leaving each organization more or less free to tailor the processes to its own unique set of demands and resources.

The ISO 19770-1 is not as mature as is ITIL and has not been adapted as widespread as ITIL. However, companies such as Microsoft have also used elements from the ISO 19770-1 standard when drafting their own software asset management program.