Solutions - Escrow for your Subcontractors and Vendors
Large projects and programs involve subcontractors and vendors. Part of the risk management plan around these projects should include maintaining access to any source code or software that your project depends on, either today or at some point in the future.
Outsourcing
No matter the size of your company, you are probably outsourcing some of your development. Outsourced development happens for both products you plan to sell and custom applications you use to run the business.
The contract you have with your subcontractor or vendor probably states that you, the entity paying for development, owns all of the intellectual property (such as design documents and source code) that is related to the work that is being completed. Do you have appropriate access to this intellectual property? Sometimes just mailing-around CDs works, but tinyEscrow's RightsProtect solution works better.
More about RightsProtect >>
Small Projects
Even small projects rely on subcontractors or components licensed from vendors. If there are critical components or controls that your software relies on, it is probably more cost effective to use tinyEscrow RightsProtect than it is to let the software be inoperable while you write a work-around.
Large Projects
Managing large projects involves monitoring and controlling a great deal of complexity. Being surprised that a critical piece of the software is no longer operational, and that you may have no recourse, is not a position good managers find themselves in.
Part of a risk management strategy for any large project should include escrowing the work of subcontractors and vendors, usually including design documents and source code. This is especially important when you are licensing a third-party add-onto which your application relies on, but the licensor retains the rights to the IP. Examples might be compression or encryption software.
When you escrow this source code, you are protecting the project and your company from events such as subcontractor bankruptcy, or support contract violations.
For organizations that need to protection for multiple subcontractors or vendors, tinyEscrow's RightsProtect Multiple Depositor Plan.