Maybe! There are software companies out there that believe that your data does not belong to you. Perhaps you would like to export your customer and/or inventory files to a database or spreadsheet or html so you can create reports, graphs, or put your information on the internet. There are many reasons to be able to export your data to a standard format.

One very important reason might be to change programs. And this is precisely why many software companies do not have an export built into their software.

Many software companies not only make their money from selling the software in the first place, but the recurring money they get from support.  So, they don't like letting you export your data. You would be able to change companies easily, and they would lose their support money.

This is a great idea for the software company, but very bad for you.

We at VMT Software, have one standard and one optional export program, so you can export your customer and inventory information to a standard data format.

One standard data format is called ASCII (pronounced ask kee). This is a standard data format created by the U.S. Government. It means American Standard Code for Information Interchange. This was created so companies and the government can exchange data.

Another format that has become very popular, and very easy to read and write to is Dbase. Although not many companies use dbase for their data files anymore, many programs can import and/or export to a dbase file format.

If your software does not do an export, or the data files are not possible for you to read or another company to read directly, you may be a data hostage. That means that in order for you to transfer your data to a new program, you'll probably have to have the software company that you are transferring the data to, analyze and read your data, then convert it to their format before it can be used in your new software.

We have read other companies data for years, converted the data to our format, and everything is fine. Sometimes we get a lot of information, and sometimes we get a little. It depends on the other companies data format. If the other company has an export for their inventory and customer files, we get great information, and you, the customer, will be much happier.

So the point to this story? If you are buying new software, make sure you ask the software company if the customer and inventory files (at least) can be exported to a standard data format like ASCII, DBASE III+, EXCEL, or even today Microsoft Access is ok, (as long as there are no passwords to access the data).

 If a software company in the future has to read your data in binary, you are not going to get as much data (if any) as you would like, you would be a data hostage!