How does it works?

The information revolution

Almost as we speak, technology is revolutionising our world. The pace gets ever faster.

Processing power multiplies. Download speeds are slashed. Memory gets ever more elephantine.

We are now in the age of source code.

It makes everything work better, more often, more quickly, and for less cost. The benefits to our quality of life and convenience can’t be exaggerated. Yet, as with everything, there is a downside. Which is, if the software itself goes down. The risk inherent is proportionate to the gains, and greater now than ever before.

Get to the source code

For obvious reasons, it’s essential that you fully support your software. And to do this, you must have access to the underlying code, known as ‘source code’.

With bespoke software running on everything from mobile phones to air-traffic control systems it’s easy to see why source code has become a closely guarded trade secret. Suppliers rarely make it available to users.

This can be bad news if the owners stop supporting the product. Very bad news. Typically, there are a range of circumstances in which this may happen:

• The owner becomes insolvent, enters into receivership or liquidation.

• The user terminates the support agreement on grounds of poor performance.

• The owner chooses to no longer support the software.

For whatever reason, if an owner stops providing software support, you’re faced with a real problem. You can either:

• Replace the software. Which can be expensive, time-consuming, and disruptive to your business.

• Use unsupported software. For business-critical software, the sheer risk makes this a non-starter.

• Provide support in-house. Yet for this, you’ll need access to the source code.

Which brings us back to where we started! And what if the owner refuses or is simply unable to hand over the source code? It can – and does – happen.

Which is where software escrow comes in.

So what exactly is software escrow?

In a nutshell, software escrow is an arrangement where the owner of the software gives a copy of the application source code to a trusted third party, usually an ‘escrow agent’ such as TES. The agent then holds the source code, under the terms of an agreement.

This agreement includes a pre-defined set of ‘trigger events’. When one or more of these events occur, it triggers a ‘release event’ and the agent may hand over the source code to the user or users.