🔴 What counts as a software emergency?

A software emergency is any situation where a broken or failing system is actively costing you money, blocking operations, or creating compliance exposure right now. It is not a feature request. It is not a slow system. It is the point where work has stopped, data is at risk, or a deadline cannot be met because the software is failing.

The common thread is operational paralysis. When the software that runs a core part of your business stops working and there is no one to call, that is when PCG gets the phone call. In 2026, orphaned legacy systems and single-developer applications fail constantly. The developers who built them have retired, moved on, or are simply unavailable. PCG has been diagnosing exactly these situations for 31 years.

⏱ How fast can PCG actually respond?

PCG answers the phone. That is not a marketing line; it is how the business has operated since 1995. For genuine emergencies, the initial call happens same day or next business day. The diagnostic review of what is broken and what it will take to fix it is delivered within one to two business days depending on complexity.

Speed matters here, but so does accuracy. A wrong diagnosis in an emergency situation makes things worse. The first conversation is a triage call where PCG determines the severity, identifies what data is at risk, and establishes whether the system can be stabilized in place or needs to be bypassed immediately. That call takes 30 to 60 minutes and costs nothing. What follows from it depends entirely on what the call uncovers.

For PCG-built applications, emergency response is even faster. Clients on a monthly support retainer get same-day response with full system access already established. Most issues on PCG-built software get resolved within hours, not days, because PCG has the source code, the documentation, and the institutional knowledge of exactly how the system was designed.¹

🛠 What does the emergency response process actually look like?

PCG runs a structured emergency process that has been refined over decades of exactly these situations. The goal is to stop the bleeding first, then figure out what caused it.

🔍 Can PCG fix software built by someone else?

Yes. The majority of emergency calls PCG receives are for software built by developers who are no longer available. This is one of the defining realities of custom software in 2026: a significant portion of the applications keeping businesses running were built by individual contractors, small shops, or in-house developers who are no longer around to support them.

PCG approaches these situations the same way a structural engineer approaches an older building with no blueprints. The work begins with understanding what the system does before touching anything. PCG reads the code, traces the data flows, identifies the dependencies, and builds enough working knowledge of the system to diagnose it safely. That process takes longer than working on PCG-built software, but it is not unusual work for this team.

The technologies that show up in most emergency calls are ones PCG has been working with for decades: Microsoft Access, Visual Basic 6, older ASP applications, Excel-based systems, custom .NET applications of various ages, SQL Server databases of every vintage. The 32-bit application running on a Windows 10 machine that just received an update is a familiar situation. So is the Access database that was last touched by a developer who retired in 2019.²

💰 What does emergency software support cost?

PCG charges for time on emergency work at a rate that reflects the expertise and urgency involved. The triage call is free. The diagnosis engagement, which produces a written assessment of what is broken and what it will take to fix it, starts at $2,500 and scales with complexity. Active repair work is scoped and quoted after the diagnosis is complete.

The reason for the diagnosis-first structure is that quoting emergency repair work without a proper diagnosis produces numbers that are either wildly high or dangerously low. PCG will not quote a repair job without understanding the system. Clients who need a firm number before the first call are not the right fit for this process.

Clients who move to a monthly support retainer after an emergency engagement eliminate the emergency call scenario entirely for PCG-managed systems. Every call gets answered. Issues get resolved before they become crises. That is the actual value of the retainer: it converts an unpredictable emergency spend into a predictable monthly cost, and it means PCG already knows the system when something does go wrong.

⚠️ What if the system is too old or too broken to fix?

Some systems are genuinely not worth repairing. PCG will tell you that directly, and it happens more often than the industry admits. A VB6 application running on a 15-year-old server that just failed, with no source code, no documentation, and database corruption across 40% of the records, may not be recoverable in a way that makes financial sense. PCG has told clients exactly that, and then helped them figure out what to do next.

When a system is beyond practical repair, the options are replacement or manual operation while replacement is built. PCG scopes both. The replacement can be a modern .NET application built on PCG's FireFlight Data System, a configured off-the-shelf tool, or a migration to a platform that already exists in your industry. Which option makes sense depends on what the system does, how many people use it, and what budget is available. That conversation happens after the diagnostic, not before it.

The worst outcome is paying for emergency repairs on a system that fails again in six months. PCG will not take that work. If the only honest path forward is replacement, the diagnostic report says so clearly.