Under their contracts with ESS, schools are prohibited from making ESS supplied software available to any third parties, including SIMS and FMS and the databases that form part of these programs. Customers are also prohibited from developing, using, or allowing third parties to use, programs that integrate with or interrogate ESS supplied software without the written consent from ESS. Such prohibited action would include allowing third parties to integrate with the school’s copy of SIMS through the SIMS Connector APIs without ESS’ consent.
ESS is very happy to consent to integrations being made through the SIMS and FMS APIs, but requires that any third party who wishes to establish such an integration first enter into a Technical Integrator Agreement (“TIA”) with ESS (and abide by its terms). ESS has approximately 75 such agreements in place with third party education software providers. These agreements contain important provisions which protect against any third party misusing their integrations with SIMS and FMS, and to protect against the introduction of any potentially harmful or malicious software. The requirement for third parties to enter into such an agreement before establishing integrations through SIMS and FMS APIs is an entirely legitimate and proportionate protection against potential abuse of our intellectual property, and is a very common requirement throughout the software industry.
With its MigrationX product, Bromcom has chosen to circumvent these protections. Whilst Bromcom did enter into a TIA with ESS many years ago, this was for a completely different product and (by Bromcom’s own submission) does not apply to the integrations established by MigrationX. Furthermore, Bromcom has repeatedly breached that agreement, which specifically prohibits it from developing or deploying programs that read directly from SIMS and FMS databases, which again, by its own admission Bromcom has done for many years.
Bromcom has not approached ESS to expand the scope of its existing TIA, nor was ESS given any advance notice of the launch of the MigrationX product using SIMS APIs. Accordingly, ESS has not been given the opportunity to review and fully understand the technical details of how MigrationX integrates with SIMS software – an obviously essential step in determining whether or not it would be appropriate for us to approve the use of the product with software we have supplied to our customers.
Whilst ESS remains willing to engage with Bromcom in relation to this new product, until such time as Bromcom has agreed to comply with ESS’ perfectly legitimate and straightforward requirements for technical integrators, ESS does not consent to use of MigrationX with SIMS or FMS APIs by MirgrationX. Any customer who chooses to use the product in the absence of such consent would therefore be committing a breach of their ESS contract.