By Software Magazine Staff
Software license agreements protect and serve both sides of a technology contract. Once a business decides to invest in technology, the protection of the resulting intellectual property (IP) is a concern for both sides.
Many software providers look to IP protection and licensing solutions to ensure their rights are protected, and should do the same for their clients in the event that they are, for one reason or another, no longer able to continue to service the software. Providers that take the step to ensure technology protection for their customers instill a confidence that becomes a competitive advantage.
RedPrairie is a leader in inventory, transportation, and workforce solutions. The company offers agile solutions to help ensure visibility and collaboration between manufacturers, distributors, retailers, and consumers to a customer base including consumer goods, food and beverage, high-tech and electronics, retail, industrial, and third-party logistics companies. In 2012, the company merged with JDA to create a global supply chain management company with a portfolio of integrated planning and execution solutions and services for end-to-end supply chain management.
Through its integrated suite of solutions, the company helps its customers keep products moving through the supply chain, enables employees to work more efficiently, and reduces transportation costs.
With the technology so embedded into customers’ everyday businesses, RedPrairie found that customers were sometimes cautious about what might happen in the event that the software provider is unable to support its technology in the future. To thwart these concerns, the company invests in technology escrow services from Iron Mountain.
Iron Mountain serves as a risk mitigation resource when two or more parties are negotiating a software license agreement. Once a software escrow contract is established, the source code for the software is placed within a secure escrow account held by Iron Mountain. This type of escrow agreement provides peace of mind, because even if RedPrairie’s business circumstances change, their software source code will be accessible to their customers to facilitate recreating, maintaining, and supporting related applications going forward.
RedPrairie looks to the service to assure its customers that licensing their software is a safe choice. The technology provider offers its customers a standard escrow offering when requested. Through this offering, Iron Mountain acts as a neutral third party and safeguards RedPairie’s software source code in secure, access-protected escrow accounts to document and maintain IP integrity. If for some reason RedPrairie becomes unable to support their products in the future, customers with the protection contact Iron Mountain to request a release. If the release conditions are satisfied, Iron Mountain releases the software source code to RedPrairie’s customers.
With the help of Iron Mountain, RedPrairie finds a competitive advantage with product assurance.
