Software Escrow Licensing Query

[Guest Chris M]

Hello all,

 

The company I'm working for is currently looking into sorting out a

software escrow service for our clients.

 

We host a bespoke application that uses IIS to host the front end, MS

SQL Server as the backend and some business logic in between.

 

What we would like to do is provide the escrow company with a pre-built

platform that our clients would be entitled to, that could host their

data in the event that our company goes under. We were thinking that we

could do this by supplying the escrow company with a set of virtual

machines for this purpose, which they would then keep in storage.

 

My question is - what implications does this have with regards to

licensing? Can we legally supply the VHD and all associated software on

the condition that anyone who is in possession of it must be licensed

for all of the software contained on the VM before they can boot it up?

 

I've done some inital Googling for similar situations, but it doesn't

seem to be a very common question.

 

Thanks in advance for any advice,

 

--

Chris.