RE: Will your chosen CMS vendor go bust?

Interesting to get so many opinions. In this world, nothing is perfect. For
me, Escrow is simply an insurance policy. If the product is good, and a
vendor goes broke, then Escrow gets the source code out of the receivers
hands. The buyer, then, has some way forward for it to be managed and
supported by another developer. So Escrow shows the client that the vendor
believes and has confidence in his product.

We can't all be a Microsoft (or another Big Boy with fat marketing budgets)
so Escrow gives smaller developers something to offer if the 'show stopper'
for a vendor to buy is that the vendor is small.

Some of the arguments on this list seem to be 'only go open source or buy
from the Big Boys' unfortunately.

Paul
Netsite

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ben Noblet
Sent: 06 October 2005 07:42
To: [email protected]
Subject: RE: [CMS] Will your chosen CMS vendor go bust?

Hi David,

I was just about to say the same thing, although not quite as eloquently as
you.  I completely agree.

After all, if Microsoft went broke would having the source code for Windows
and MS-Word help at all?  

Cheers
Ben


> Escrow is a bad choice in my opinion.
> 
> Escrow is more relevant for custom development. Having product code in 
> escrow is of little use to anyone - it is simply a gesture of risk 
> management that provides very little practical benefit. If a product 
> dies, the customer is best placed to get their content out and go 
> through the pain of migrating to a growing and better performing 
> platform. It is unlikely a customer can take the code and continue to 
> meet their own needs. It is also unlikely that they will be able to 
> find suitable development resources for ensuring their 'self-managed' 
> solution continues to be viable. Any company that wants to invest so 
> heavily in 'being their own mechanic'
> should have
> considered Open Source, where the Escrow idea is meaningless.
> 
> For proprietary relationships, there is more at stake than the code. 
> If your partner (vendor) goes belly-up, you loose support, product 
> vibrancy, shared-development experience, and a range of intangibles 
> that simple access to the code will not address. From the vendor's 
> point of view, having the code in Escrow also damages the sale of 
> business IP that may return something to the stakeholders and set up 
> an arrangement where another vendor can continue to support legacy 
> installations or assist them with transition.
> 
> Talking to IP Lawyers, it is clear that code held in escrow is very 
> rarely accessed and if it is, it seldom leads to positive outcomes 
> (simply more good money after bad). From the point of view of a 
> vendor, none of the majors would put their product code in Escrow, so 
> if you make Escrow arrangements a requirement, you are likely to get 
> the type of product you deserve and pay a premium for the arrangement.
> 
> Escrow is what your lawyers will suggest, not what prudent business 
> practice would suggest. James, good to see your post and glad you have 
> stirred up some conversation. No doubt others will disagree with this 
> one.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> David Warwick
> Komodo CMS


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