The supplier behind your software has stopped supporting it

How it tends to happen

Suppliers rarely announce that they have stopped supporting a system. A small software company is bought by a larger one, and the people who knew your system move on. A product is quietly retired and customers are told to move to its successor at a much higher price. A two-person firm stops answering emails. Sometimes the first sign is a renewal quote several times the size of the last one.

In each case the system itself still works. What has changed is that nobody stands behind it, and you may not hold what you would need to take it elsewhere.

What to check before anything else

Start with the paperwork. Find the original contract and any later support agreement, and read what they say about ownership of the source code, your licence to use it, and whether a copy was placed in escrow. Escrow means the code was deposited with an independent agent, who releases it to you if events named in the agreement occur. Do not assume that having paid for the software means you own it. If the contract is unclear, take legal advice.

Then look at what you hold in practice:

• Do you have the current source code, or only the running system?
• Do you have your own backup of the data?
• Whose name are the hosting, the domain and the certificates in?

If the supplier hosts the system, the third question matters most. A supplier in difficulty may stop paying its own hosting bill, and a server switched off for non-payment can be hard to get back. While the supplier still exists and still answers, ask for a database backup, a copy of the code and administrator access. A request that takes a day now may be impossible later.

Your options

Negotiate. If the supplier is still trading, an agreed handover is the cheapest route: the code, a licence to keep using and changing it, and some of their developers’ time to explain it. A supplier retiring a product will sometimes agree to this as a way of ending its own obligations. Get the terms in writing.

Move to a new maintainer. If you hold the code and the access, another team can take the system on. The software stays as it is and your staff carry on using it. This depends on the code being complete enough to build, which should be checked early. Our takeover process is built around that check.

Replace it. If the code cannot be obtained, or the system was already near the end of its useful life, replacement may be the right answer. It is the slowest and most expensive route, and it still needs your data, so secure the backup whichever way you go. If your needs are standard, a packaged product may suit you better than a rebuild.

Stay and pay. Where the price has risen but support continues, paying for another year while you plan can be reasonable. Use the year to obtain the code and the data.

Where we would start

We would begin by finding out exactly what you hold and what the contract entitles you to ask for. Then we would help you ask for it, check what arrives, and prove that the application can be built from the code supplied.

If you want an independent view of the system’s condition before deciding, a code audit provides one at a fixed price. Once the system is under your control, it can move onto a maintenance arrangement like any other.