So, what is a software escrow?
As a business, you will be depending on software developers for some of the tools required to run your business. Before investing a lot on these tools, you would want to make sure that these tools are available for a longer duration with the required updates and maintenance based on your requirements. In the same way, software developers have their own requirements. They won’t be willing to give you the source code.
A software escrow agreement helps protect all the different parties involved in a software licensing agreement. The source code, and the related resources and documentation are deposited with a reliable third party software escrow. The escrow will hold the data until a mutually agreed situation as defined in the agreement occurs.
Choosing the right software escrow for your business:
Choosing the right software escrow is a crucial step in a software deal. You might want to go through the various credentials they have claimed by means of good research, before choosing the one that best fits you.
In this article, we will discuss some of the parameters that you should be looking at while choosing a software escrow agent.
#1 Dependability:
The first thing to make sure is that the dependability of the agency. You can do this by checking the duration they have been in business for. The duration of being in the business is a credible parameter for their expertise and reliability. Since we are going with the escrow to increase the reliability of a software vendor, the escrow’s reliability has to be beyond any doubts..
#2 Expertise:
Expertise plays a critical role when it comes to expertise. Check out the technical expertise of the provider based on their staff. A good escrow service provider should have a good quantity of staff with them. Technical expertise is a critical factor as it determines how they will be handling your data. Give added points to those who have their own team of inhouse developers. Then, take a look at their legal expertise. The premise of a software escrow is all about the commercial deal that is signed between the two parties, a escrow agent should be able to handle all the required legal responsibilities in an efficient way.
#3 Management of your data
During times of disaster, you should be able to accessing your account with the software escrow service as soon as possible in a reliable way. Take a look at their protocol and how they ensure seamless transition during situations mentioned in your agreement. Check if the service provider has best in class quality management protocol in place. Submission of the material, bill payment and updating the account information should be easy and shouldn’t be an added hassle that you have to deal with.
Conclusion
I hope this article was useful for you to learn more about the new set of difficulties that have cropped up with the rise of SaaS businesses. We also discussed ways in which you can make sure that your company is not affected when a vendor goes bankrupt and how to choose the right escrow. If you have any doubts with regards to this, let us know through the comments and we will be glad to help you out. If you have any suggestions regarding how we can improve the article, let us know them through the comments as well for us to improve.
Do you have any other reservations against using a software escrow? Have you tried any other strategies and tools to make sure that a critical software for operation is not affected at any cost? What is your opinion on the state of the industry when it comes to SaaS businesses? Do you think it’s stable enough for small companies to flourish? Let us know through the comments.
