Your name stays out of it.
Hiring an outside firm means letting strangers see how your business actually works — the systems held together with tape, the numbers you don't publish, the customer list. We treat all of it as yours: your name stays private, what we learn stays on your engagement, and your logo appears on our website only with your written permission.
The short version
We are a small Houston firm, and clients tell us the truth about their systems because it stays with us. That's the whole basis of the work.
So the rule is simple: what we learn on your engagement is used for your engagement, and only for it. If we ever want to name you publicly, we ask first, in writing, and the answer is entirely yours.
That rule is what our project write-ups are built around: they describe the engineering, and every client stays anonymous — names, logos, sites, system names and volumes all stay with them. Where a write-up says what a tool saved, the figure is a yearly dollar estimate from the operation's own savings tracker, printed with nothing that says whose operation it was.
If your procurement process needs paperwork behind that, we'll sign yours. See NDAs and agreements below.
Names stay private
Our client list stays confidential — on this website, in proposals, and on sales calls.
Data stays yours
Your records, code, and documents are used to do your work and nothing else.
NDA before the details
We'll sign one before the first technical conversation if you'd rather not talk in the open.
Returned or destroyed
When the engagement ends, we hand back what's yours and delete our working copies on request.
Promises you can hold us to
Each one specific enough to check. If any of it conflicts with an agreement we've signed with you, the signed agreement wins.
Your name, with permission only
Your company name appears in our marketing, proposals, portfolio, or references only with your written permission — and permission for one use covers that use alone.
Your information is never for sale
Client information stays with us: it is never sold, rented, or traded, to anyone, for any purpose. We're paid for the work, and the work is all your data is used for.
Your data serves your project
Records, exports, and documents you give us are used to deliver your project, and they stay with it — your data is never reused as sample data, demo content, or training material.
Your specifics stay with you
General skill we take to the next job; your specifics stay on yours. Your pricing, processes, customer lists, and internal problems are discussed with you alone.
We take the minimum
We ask for the least data that will do the job, prefer anonymized or sampled extracts over full production dumps, and work inside your environment when you'd rather nothing leave it.
We keep the circle small
Only the people doing your work have access to it. If an engagement ever needs someone outside our team, we tell you first and they're bound by the same confidentiality terms.
How your information is handled
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1
Before we start
NDA signed if you want one. We scope the work with the least access that makes it possible, and agree in writing what we're allowed to touch.
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2
During the work
Credentials and data move over channels you choose, access is limited to the people on your project, and we tell you before anything new is pulled out of your systems.
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3
At handover
Code, documentation, and data go to you. Any accounts or keys issued to us get revoked on your side and removed on ours.
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4
Afterward
We keep ordinary business records — contracts, invoices, correspondence. Working copies of your data are deleted on request, and we confirm when it's done.
NDAs and agreements
Confidentiality shouldn't depend on us being nice about it, so put it in writing:
- We'll sign your NDA as-is
- Mutual or one-way, either is fine
- Signed before the first technical call
- Confidentiality survives the engagement
- Work-for-hire IP assigned to you
- Named-reference rights stay opt-in
If your legal team has specific requirements, we'll go through them with you line by line before anything is signed. Send the paperwork to msco@stoneagesoftware.com and we'll turn it around quickly.
Security, plainly stated
We run our security practice on the NIST Cybersecurity Framework (CSF) 2.0 — the same six functions a large enterprise organizes around (Govern, Identify, Protect, Detect, Respond, Recover), applied at the scale of a small firm. In practice that means access to anything you share with us is restricted to the people who need it, everything moves over encrypted connections, and we know in advance what we would do — and who we would tell — if something went wrong.
NIST CSF is a framework a company adopts and runs day to day, rather than a certificate it is audited for. If your environment has specific security requirements — a vendor questionnaire, a controls checklist, your own access policies — tell us during scoping and we'll walk through each one with you before the work starts.
Straight answers
Will you use our name as a reference or case study?
Only if you tell us in writing that we can. Our default is that clients stay private, and permission for one use — a single reference call, say — covers that use alone, with the website a separate yes. You can withdraw it at any time.
Will you sign our NDA?
Yes, and usually as written. Mutual or one-way both work, and we are happy to sign before the first technical call so you can describe the real situation instead of a sanitized version of it. Send it over through our contact page and we will turn it around quickly.
Who on your side can see our data?
Only the people doing your work. We are a small firm, so in practice that is a very short list. If an engagement ever needs someone outside our team, we tell you before it happens and they are bound by the same confidentiality terms we are.
Do you need production data to do the work?
Usually a smaller set does the job: anonymized extracts, a sample, or a restored copy in a non-production environment, and we will ask for that first. Where the work truly requires production access, we scope it to what is needed and say so plainly.
Do you follow a recognized security framework?
Yes — we run our security practice on the NIST Cybersecurity Framework (CSF) 2.0, across all six of its functions: Govern, Identify, Protect, Detect, Respond, and Recover. NIST CSF is a framework a company adopts and runs day to day, rather than a certificate it is audited for. If your environment has its own security requirements — a vendor questionnaire, a controls checklist, your own access policies — raise them during scoping and we will go through each one with you before the work starts.
What happens to our data when the project ends?
Deliverables go to you, credentials issued to us get revoked, and our working copies of your data are deleted on request — we confirm in writing when that is done. We keep ordinary business records such as contracts and invoices.
Do you work with our competitors?
We may work in the same industry — that domain knowledge is part of why you would hire us — but your specifics never travel. Pricing, processes, customer lists, and internal problems stay on your engagement. If you need a formal exclusivity or conflict clause, raise it during scoping and we will address it in the agreement.
Who owns the code and documentation you produce?
You do. Work we build for you is assigned to you on payment, along with the documentation to run it without us — yours to keep, change, or hand to anyone.
How this relates to our Privacy Policy
This page is about client confidentiality — how we treat the information you entrust to us during an engagement. Our Privacy Policy covers the separate question of what this website and our email collect, and the choices you have there. Where the two overlap, the stricter protection applies, and any confidentiality agreement we've signed with you overrides both.
Questions about any of this go to msco@stoneagesoftware.com or 832-598-8234.
Last updated: October 6, 2026
Tell us the messy version.
Send the NDA first if you'd rather. We'll sign it, then you can describe what's actually going on.
Prefer to talk?
Call 832-598-8234 or email msco@stoneagesoftware.com. Houston, Texas — serving Houston, The Woodlands, Conroe, Sugar Land, Katy, Pearland, and the Greater Houston metro.
What happens next
We read your message, an engineer replies with questions or a straight answer, and if a call would help, we book one. From the first reply on, you're talking to the people who'd do the work.