Invest in information technologies without any worries
The aim of the software escrow is to minimize the risks related to the development and maintenance of information systems. This service provides a safe deposit of source codes of software applications by an independent party – an escrow agent – based on a three-party agreement between the user, software producer, and escrow agent. If the conditions agreed on (bankruptcy of the supplier or violation of the SLA) are fulfilled, the agreement entitles the escrow agent to provide the user with the source codes with the aim of continuing in the maintenance and development of the software with some other partner.
Investment protection
When making a big investment in information systems with the aim of increasing efficiency of your business activities, you always expect long-term cooperation with the supplier. Despite the efforts to ensure a continuous support by concluding service contracts, your ideas about the cooperation often remain unfulfilled. This may be caused by not keeping the conditions of maintenance and, in extreme cases, by a bankruptcy of your supplier. This causes a loss of the finances you spent, but it may result even in a threat to your business activities. Software escrow provides you with a chance to use your system even in such an unfavorable situation, and thus it plays a significant role in protection of investments in information technologies.
Long-term maintenance guaranteed
It is the supplier’s ability to flexibly react to your requirements over a long period which is the essential factor for selecting your software supplier. However, who is going to be able to help not only on signing a service contract but also on actually fulfilling the obligations following from it? Software escrow cannot answer this question, but it is the way to insure your decision.
Minor developers are flexible to adjust to your needs and requirements whereas you may expect the major ones to be more stable on the market. However, both the factors are important for a long-term maintenance and development of information systems. These obligations are mostly defined by the service contract, but the contract as such is unable to actually ensure them. Software escrow services offer a sufficient guarantee.
High-level deposit of source codes
Currently, the only way to deposit source codes often is to use a deposit at a notary which is a service offered by some lawyers. However, these services are often costly and risky in terms of manipulating with source codes, and they are very inflexible due to the necessity to regularly manipulate with the media (CD and flash memories). Also, not always are they able to do what they are required to due to their limited reliability and longevity of the deposited media. Software escrow services offer an incomparably higher level of safety, flexibility, and efficiency.
