Most Micro Focus products are governed by the Additional License Authorizations, and that is the key trap area in any OpenText audit. We read the ALAs against your order forms and hold the vendor to the words on the page, not the interpretation that lifts the finding.
When OpenText acquired Micro Focus, it took on a portfolio governed not by the OpenText ECM EULA but by the Micro Focus Additional License Authorizations. The ALAs are the documents that define each product's metric, the rights that attach to a license, the upgrade and version entitlements, and the capacity and territory restrictions. Because the OpenText estate now spans security, DevOps, COBOL, Exstream and more, the ALAs are where the broadest audit exposure sits, and where an opening finding most often reinterprets the grant against the buyer.
The recurring problem is interpretation. An ALA is a layered document, often amended across order forms, renewals, and acquisitions, and a finding tends to read the version that maximises the number. The traps we see most often are:
Because compliance is treated as the sole responsibility of the licensee under the governing terms, the burden of holding the vendor to the correct reading falls on the buyer. The entitlement review exists to meet that burden: to assemble the authorizations, the order forms, and the amendment history into a single baseline that the finding has to answer to.
We take over within the seven day notice window, agree an NDA, and gather every ALA, order form, and amendment into one controlled record before the vendor frames the scope.
We build the entitlement baseline from the authorizations themselves, resolving stacked and superseded ALAs and mapping each product to the metric its governing document actually defines.
We challenge bundling, version, and capacity reinterpretations line by line, holding the finding to the exact grant language and the order form rather than the reading that inflates it.
We settle on the buyer's terms and, where useful, convert forward into a clean OpenPass agreement with defined metrics that close the ambiguity the ALAs left open.
The entitlement review underpins every other track. ECM aside, which is governed by the OpenText EULA, Fortify, ArcSight, ALM, Exstream and COBOL all rest on ALA language, so reading those authorizations correctly is the foundation of each product defense. The full method is set out in the four Rs and in the complete OpenText audit defense playbook.
An ALA misinterpretation can carry as much exposure as any single product overclaim, because it can apply across the whole estate at once. Correcting the reading is often the single largest lever in a finding. Across more than 200 defended OpenText and Micro Focus audits, the firm record holds steady.
The matching gated briefing is the reading Micro Focus ALAs paper. For the cross cutting mechanics, start with how to respond to an OpenText seven day audit notice.
ArcSight throughput metrics are defined in the ALAs, and the reading is where the finding turns.
Track 07Core and capacity definitions for COBOL rest on the authorization language we review.
Track 08OpenPass replaces the ALA ambiguity with a single contract and defined metrics.
We take over within the seven day notice window. Buyer side only. Founded in 2020 by former vendor compliance leadership. Not affiliated with OpenText Corporation.