The email that says they are winding up
Sometimes it arrives as a polite notice from an administrator. Sometimes there is no notice at all: the support line stops answering, the website disappears and an invoice for the annual licence never comes. Either way you are left using software that nobody is looking after.
For now it still works. Staff log in, jobs get booked, reports print. But there is a question hanging over every day: what happens when something goes wrong, the hosting bill lapses, or a certificate expires and the login page stops loading?
Why this catches businesses out
Most businesses never thought about it because the supplier was small, friendly and reliable for years. The contract probably said little about source code, data export or what happens on closure. Some small suppliers never set up a source code escrow arrangement, and even where one exists, releasing the code can take time.
There is also the question of where the system actually runs. If it is hosted, it may sit on a server account in the supplier's name that nobody else can reach. If it is installed on your own machines, it may depend on a licence check that phones home to a server that is about to vanish.
The real risk is not that the software stops tomorrow. It is that it stops at a random moment, when nobody has a copy of the data in a form anyone else can use.
What waiting costs
| Scenario | Consequence |
|---|---|
| Hosting account lapses | System goes offline with no warning and possibly no data |
| Security issue found | Nobody is there to patch it |
| Licence server disappears | Installed copies may refuse to start |
| Tax or rule change needed | No one can make the change in the software |
| Staff build workarounds | Spreadsheets appear alongside the system and drift out of step |
Time spent hoping it holds is time you could have used to move calmly rather than in a panic.
There is a softer cost too. Staff stop trusting the system, so they start keeping their own notes and copies on the side. When the replacement finally comes, those side records have to be reconciled as well, which makes the eventual move harder than it needed to be.
What we do, in the order we do it
- Secure the data. We take a full export or database backup, including attachments and documents, and check that it can actually be opened and read outside the system. A backup nobody can restore is not a backup.
- Secure access. Where the software is hosted, we help you establish who owns the domain, the hosting account and the database, and move what can legitimately be moved into your name.
- Assess the system. If source code is available through escrow or the administrator, we review whether it is maintainable. If not, we look at the database structure and the way the application behaves.
- Decide the route. There are three honest options: keep it alive with light maintenance, move to an off-the-shelf package, or build a replacement. We lay out what each involves for your case.
- Migrate or rebuild. Whichever route you choose, data moves by tested script, with record counts and samples reconciled against the original.
In some cases, keeping the existing system alive is the sensible answer for a while, particularly if the code is available and in decent shape. We will say so when that is true.
Where you end up
First, you have a complete copy of your records that you own and can read, independent of any supplier. That alone removes most of the anxiety.
Then you have a system that someone is responsible for, whether that is a package vendor with a real support team, or custom software whose code and hosting sit in your name. Either way, the next time a supplier changes hands or closes, your data and access are not tied up with them.
Does this sound like you?
- Your software supplier has closed, been bought out or stopped answering
- You are not sure where your data is physically hosted
- You have never taken a full export and tried opening it elsewhere
- The hosting, domain or licence is in the supplier's name
- Nobody can make changes to the system any more
- Staff have started keeping side spreadsheets just in case