The CMA has announced its decision to proceed with an investigation into ESS’ conduct, and the restrictions they have attempted to impose on schools migrating their data to other MIS providers. This development follows Bromcom’s claim that switching to Bromcom MIS is ‘safe, authorised and legal’.
Further information has now also been brought to light by Bromcom which shows that restrictions on data migration were spurious in the first place. A publicly available page on the ESS website states: ‘It would be naïve for ESS to assume that the SIMS database is not accessed via SQL.’
In other words, while ESS does not support access to the SIMS database, it is accepted that it can and does happen; furthermore:
- There is no restriction that prevents schools accessing the database via SQL
- There is no reference to Intellectual Property Rights
- The only charge to schools would be for any ‘fixes’ that might be required – not relevant if simply taking a backup for migration.
Why you can trust Bromcom
- Further to our previous post on this topic, we are happy to restate our offer of indemnification against any legal costs arising from potential action by ESS Ltd (subject to terms and conditions).
- Bromcom is the only leading MIS supplier that has a long-standing technical partnership with ESS, since 2003, following a ruling by the Office of Fair Trading (the precursor to CMA) that secured data inter-operability. This granted Bromcom access and rights to SIMS SQL .bak that no other MIS supplier has.
- Our ‘Buy Back’ offer allows you to switch to Bromcom without having to pay for your old system. We’ll discount the cost of our contract based on what you owe your existing supplier so you can move to a modern MIS and Finance system today. This offer is for schools and MATs, and applies to any outstanding MIS or Finance contract of up to three years.
- Bromcom has helped thousands of schools, MATs and local authorities make the switch to Bromcom, a process which is tried and tested.
Update as of the 2nd September 2024
On the 29th August, the CMA announced that it had closed its investigation into ESS SIMS following reports it was restricting schools’ ability to switch to other MIS providers. The CMA has determined that the investigation is “no longer an administrative priority”.
Whilst we know that this is not the news that many schools and LAs were hoping for, we want to reassure you that it does not change how we will migrate schools’ data to Bromcom. Schools are continuing to switch from SIMS to Bromcom using SQL backups with no threat of legal action, and should feel confident doing so.
Following an open competition we recently conducted among IT professionals, we also confirmed that SQL backups are the only way to migrate all school data to a new MIS, and the other methods recommended by ESS do not allow enough data to be extracted for a successful migration.
We wanted to take a moment to reiterate that we uphold migrating to Bromcom via SQL backups from SIMS is safe, legal, and authorised, as well, and in the highly unlikely event ESS does take legal action against an education establishment that provides Bromcom with an SQL backup, we are offering indemnification against any legal costs (subject to terms and conditions). You can learn more here.
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with your sales representative or our team.