Locked software

Mark Fletcher's Australian Newsagents Blog has two stories of newsagents locked out of point of sale software.

From the posts, I assume this is due to licensing disputes between the store and the software vendor. This is absolutely disgraceful behaviour by the vendor as it cripples the business.

Sadly, this sort of thing is not unusual with proprietary database programs. The data is firmly locked away and difficult to get at unless the victim stumps up a large and improbably amount of money.

I would recommend to anyone considering buying such a program to have a close look at the backup and data export features in the program. All programs should have a local backup function and the ability to export the databases into a generic format like a Comma Separated Values text file.

That way, should you find a dispute looming then you can at least export your business data into a format that other programs can read.

For my money, locking customers out of their own data is shameful behaviour. Sadly this lack of respect for the consumer all too common in the IT industry and is another reason why we are getting a reputation somewhere between real estate agents and used car dealers.