The CaseTalk Team

A note on continuity, escrow, and long-term assurance for enterprise customers.

A direct answer to a fair question

Every serious enterprise customer evaluating a specialist tool asks the same question: what happens to our investment if something happens to the vendor? For CaseTalk, this is a particularly fair question. CaseTalk has been developed and operated continuously since 2003 by a small, focused organization — which is both a strength (coherent vision, direct customer access, 25+ years of methodological consistency) and a concern that deserves an honest, structural answer.

This page describes the arrangements in place — and those available on request — that ensure your investment in CaseTalk and in fact-oriented modeling is protected regardless of what happens to BCP Software.

1. Your data never leaves your premises

CaseTalk is an on-premises tool. All models, all metadata, and all derived artifacts reside on your own infrastructure, under your own control, at all times. BCP Software does not host, process, or have access to your models. There is no vendor cloud to be shut down, no SaaS tenancy to migrate out of, and no external dependency required for you to continue working with your models — today, tomorrow, or in twenty years.

This is the strongest form of continuity guarantee a software vendor can offer: your working assets are already in your hands.

2. Your models remain readable — always

Even when a CaseTalk license expires, your models remain fully readable. License expiry restricts active modeling and editing, not access to the work you have already produced. Existing models can still be opened, inspected, queried, and exported without an active license.

In practice this means your modeling investment is never held hostage by a licensing event. Whether a renewal lapses, a project pauses for years, or BCP Software itself ceases to operate, the models you have built remain legible and usable.

3. Your license continues even if we cannot

CaseTalk is licensed on a time-limited basis under normal commercial terms. However, BCP Software maintains a standing emergency unlimited license that is released to existing customers in the event that BCP Software becomes unable to continue issuing or renewing licenses — for example, on cessation of operations or prolonged incapacity.

In practical terms: if something happens to BCP Software, your CaseTalk installation does not go dark when your current license expires. The emergency unlimited license ensures existing customers retain perpetual, operational use of their installed CaseTalk software — not only readable models, but the full active modeling environment.

This arrangement is documented and available to enterprise customers as part of contracting.

4. Your models are open, inspectable, and portable

CaseTalk's architecture has always prioritized open formats and direct inspectability. Your modeling work is not locked inside a proprietary binary — it is accessible through standard tooling, with or without CaseTalk running:

• SQL-queryable internal repository. CaseTalk's model store is an openly-structured database that can be queried directly with standard SQL. Your models, their structure, and their relationships are inspectable with any SQL client. If CaseTalk were unavailable tomorrow, everything you have built in it would remain queryable and extractable using tooling every enterprise already owns.
• Multiple documented export formats. Models and derived artifacts can be exported in various technical and open standards from CSV, SQL to XML.
• Self-documenting models. FCO-IM's verbalization approach means your models carry their own human-readable natural-language documentation — fully exportable, readable by non-specialists, and independent of any tool.

This is a deliberate architectural choice, not an incidental feature.

5. The methodology is independent of the tool

FCO-IM (Fully Communication-Oriented Information Modeling) is a published, peer-reviewed methodology taught at universities and described in publicly available books and its self-study follow-up. The methodology has an established academic record, an active international community, and decades of documented application.

Unlike proprietary modeling approaches tied to a single vendor, FCO-IM itself outlives any individual tool. Organizations that have standardized on FCO-IM via CaseTalk have invested in knowledge and artifacts that remain valid regardless of toolchain.

6. Source code escrow — available for enterprise contracts

For enterprise customers who require formal continuity guarantees beyond the emergency license, BCP Software offers source code escrow arrangements with an independent third-party escrow agent. Under such an arrangement:

• The full CaseTalk source code, build instructions, and supporting documentation are deposited with a neutral escrow agent
• The deposit is updated on a defined schedule, typically at each major release
• Release to the beneficiary is triggered by defined events, which may include cessation of BCP Software's operations, prolonged inability to deliver contracted maintenance, insolvency, or material unremedied breach
• Upon release, the beneficiary receives rights to maintain and operate the software for their own internal use under terms defined in the escrow agreement

Escrow arrangements are negotiated as part of enterprise contracts.

7. The co-creating network

CaseTalk has always been developed within a network of co-creating partners — training institutes, consulting partners, authors, and long-term customers who have shaped the tool and the methodology together. In the event that continued development by BCP Software becomes impossible, this network — combined with the on-premises deployment, continued model readability, the emergency license, source code escrow, and the openness of the model repository — provides a practical path for continued maintenance, training, and support of the installed base.

Current partner and community activity is visible on The Community.

8. What to do if you need this in a contract

For enterprise procurement teams requiring formal continuity assurances, BCP Software can provide:

- Written confirmation of the on-premises deployment model
- Written confirmation of model readability after license expiry
- Emergency unlimited license terms in writing
- Escrow agreement referencing our nominated independent agent
- Continuity clauses for inclusion in license and support agreements
- Data portability and format commitments in writing
- Direct contact with the escrow provider for due-diligence review

BCP Software is registered in the Netherlands. Continuity arrangements are governed by Dutch law unless otherwise agreed in the relevant contract.