Carbonite CEO Speaks on the Growing Online Storage Trend
David Friend, founder and CEO of Carbonite, is always good for a thoughtful -- and colorful -- analysis of almost anything in the online data storage sector. If you have custom radio (XM, Sirius and the like), you've probably heard of Carbonite. The company advertises on new media more than any other data storage company The Station knows. When Symantec announced its acquisition of SwapDrive June 10, Friend was quick to offer his take on the deal. SwapDrive has provided the backup element of Symantec's Norton 360 security and backup service for about two years, so it wasn't that surprising that the big company would eventually take over its online storage supplier. "From what we hear, the take rate on the Norton 360 backup option has been pretty good," Friend told us. "The bundle definitely makes sense: You can protect your PC with anti-virus, anti-spyware and so forth, but the most important thing is to protect your data. And only online backup provides that protection. No anti-anything can keep your hard drive from crashing or keep a burglar from stealing your computer. "One by one, our competitors have been snapped up by big old companies. LiveVault, EVault, Connected and most of the old-line enterprise online backup companies have been bought. Mozy was recently bought by EMC for $76 million. And now SwapDrive for a reported $123 million." Friend said his own company's ambitions "go far beyond the 'white-label' strategy of SwapDrive." "In the consumer space, Carbonite now has 11 percent brand recognition," he said. "SwapDrive is probably 0. Norton was one of the early providers of anti-virus software and built a brand that, for a while, was almost synonymous with anti-virus in the consumer and business markets. "We're trying to do the same thing with backup -- that's why you hear our endorsement ads on radio shows with hosts like Howard Stern, Rush Limbaugh, and others [all of whom are politically somewhere in between those two]. In fact, I often tell our employees that we're going to be to online backup what Norton is to anti-virus. "While we have lots of co-marketing and reselling deals, it should be clear to everyone that one of our goals is to be the trusted brand name in online backup." The online backup space is hot, Friend said. "Everyone is suddenly interested in getting into the game," he said. "We just cut a deal with a leading PC manufacturer (announcement to come shortly) that is starting to ship their PCs with a free subscription to Carbonite pre-loaded. In a few years, online backup will be part of the pre-install on every PC. "Why? Because when your hard drive crashes and you lose all your family pictures, you don't blame Seagate or Western Digital -- you blame your PC manufacturer. It's a big brand liability issue for the PC manufacturers. Carbonite can make that problem go away for a PC manufacturer. Similarly, bundling online backup with anti-virus makes sense and we're pursuing partnership deals. "When you look out five years, I think almost everyone will be backing up their PC using services like Carbonite. Broadband is getting cheaper and faster, and disk storage costs are dropping like a rock. The alternatives don't look very attractive: a) don't back up and risk losing everything; b) buy an external hard drive. "External hard drives are not ideal for backups because they usually sit right next to your computer, so if someone breaks in and steals your computer, or if it is damaged by fire, flood or virus attack, both the computer and the hard drive will go bye-bye. Plus they are prone to failure (roughly 3 percent per year die). A RAID6 array that stores your data at Carbonite is 36 million times more reliable than an external hard drive. "We think Carbonite is a much better product than SwapDrive (we are, of course, biased in that regard). It's much simpler to use, and much less expensive. "We just want to keep building the best online backup company in the world and hopefully take it public in a couple of years." Hey, thanks, David, for doing my blog for me today. We all learned something new, and that's the point of this column -- no matter who writes it. |
Comments (5)
This seems to follow my contention except that--I predict minimal OS and minimal data retention onsite before the decade's out--as the rule. And I don't think it would be a consumer decision. How much cheaper a unit is that to build?
--Glenn
Posted by Glenn Charles | June 17, 2008 9:13 AM
I've read on Wikipedia about remote backup and I tried some services, but the only one I bought is Memopal.
Memopal offers a search engine online that helps me find archived documents in few seconds. Some Competitors have a search engine too but it's very slow and usually it is not online.
Memopal is online storage, online backup and file sharing services into one product.
Memopal saves all versions of my documents. Moreover I have two computers, desktop ad laptop, and I can install Memopal on both buying only one license. It's great!
www.memopal.com
Posted by elisabeth | June 25, 2008 8:25 AM
Thanks for this, Elisabeth. I hadn't heard of Memopal, and this will help when I put together a side-by-side listing of some of the "leading" online backup services to show the differences in what they offer and in pricing.
In fact, I invite other eWEEK readers to let me know about other such services, so I can add them to my list. Thanks in advance.
/cp
Posted by Chris P | June 25, 2008 10:16 AM
If your looking for even more information on PC security then I would head over here as they have plenty of stuff on identity theft, antivirus software etc.
Posted by PC Security | July 21, 2008 11:11 PM
We have been using www.BusinessClassBackup.com for all of our affiliate-reselling Online backup needs. Fast, Professional and they always answer the phone when I have a question. You can't find a better partner to team with for your online backup needs.
There have been a number of bargain basement services entering the market with a barrage of advertising. We understand that some people simply make business decisions based on price alone, but when it comes to vital needs like secure data, cheaper is NOT better! It would be like buying the cheapest parachute or life insurance!
What sets www.BusinessClassBackup.com apart from cheaper backup solutions?
1. WWW.BUSINESSCLASSBACKUP.COM is for Business, bargain-basement backups are for home users
"Bargain" backup services are targeted toward the average home user and never claim to be suitable or adequate for protecting valuable business data.
www.BusinessClassBackup.com has had a stellar history of protecting data for business clients, including over 200 recognizable franchise brands, in dozens of countries globally over the last decade.
2. A History of Reliable Data Protection
Most cut-rate backup services popping up recently are owned by speculative venture capital funding companies ill-equipped to handle the volume of customers brought in by expensive national marketing campaigns. And while the introductory pricing structure may seem too low to resist, once the initial round of funding expires the providers are forced to make a price hike (for example, one major provider raised their rates by 5x this spring).
Nearly 400 testimonials on our website speak volumes about our tried-and-proven backup solution, our reliability and attention to top-notch customer service. Over 5,000 informed IT consultants have partnered with WWW.BUSINESSCLASSBACKUP.COM in providing the service to their clients. Our pricing has never gone up; we've only decreased pricing and increased backup plan sizes over the years. We are a privately-owned, completely debt-free U.S. company.
3. 24/7 Support
When clients are in a panic and need to restore data, it is essential they can call an experienced, technically-knowledgeable support person to help them through it. With a non-business backup service, support is extremely limited. It can be a major challenge not only to speak with a live person by phone -- in a reasonable time frame, who is helpful and technically competent -- or even access useful documentation online. It's like booking a convention center with bargain rates for cramming 10,000 business tycoons into a room made for 100 -- you may save a few bucks, but the results are bound tol be disastrous.
The support staff at www.BusinessClassBackup.com is readily available by phone, toll-free 24/7, with little or no hold time. Each of our technicians has been with the company for at least 3 years and came to us with over a decade of prior hands-on IT experience.
4. Bandwidth and Performance
Bandwidth is one major commodity backup companies need to account for. When you give unlimited space for a few bucks a month, you are forced to govern bandwidth. We've tested Carbonite ourselves and had users report their results to us as well. The initial upload time was at least 10x slower than WWW.BUSINESSCLASSBACKUP.COM, which on our T1 is about 1 GB an hour. A lot of clients won't ever complete their first backup. This is a bad initial impression on backing up over the internet and can turn clients off completely. It can also cause major technical problems if backups fail to complete as scheduled due to connection issues.
www.BusinessClassBackup.com provides redundant bandwidth using multiple telecom providers via world-class connections. That way we can provide nearly limitless up-and-downstream for unparalleled transfer speed and performance.
5. Successful, Timely Data Restores
When clients need to restore a lost file, they don't have time to wait. When you try to restore files from Carbonite, your files get stuck in a cue, sometimes for days, behind other users who need to retrieve. A backup service is only as valuable as the reliability and timeliness of a restore.
While to the novice observer backups may seem like simple, straightforward file transfers, the complexity of restoring incremental file changes can cause problems with less-tested software. We can say definitively we have never lost a client's backup data.
6. World-Class Data Centers and Security
Another area where low-rate backup services cut corners is the equipment and infrastructure used to store and manage your data. Outdated technologies, overloaded servers, lack of security, monitoring and redundancy can be major signs of concern.
www.BusinessClassBackup.com uses the world's most secure data centers, located in ultra-secure private limestone mines located 100-200 feet below ground and separate by 1,100 miles. All data received by either hardened Data Center is immediately replicated to its mirror - connected by point-to-point, high-speed WAN links. Data received by either Data Center is immediately replicated to the other, so an unlikely outage or disaster at one location will not affect your data availability or service performance.
Each facility uses high-performance HP Servers with fail over and redundancy, continuous server monitoring and performance tuning, assuring that storage capacity is never exceeded. We maintain best practices networking and best-of-breed routers, switches, firewalls, servers, facilities infrastructure, power grids and telecommunications circuits are all deployed with backup components to maximize fail over and redundancy.
Other physical security features include:
o Redundant power supply using backup generators with full power for up to 7 days
o Redundant completely independent electrical systems, power train, commercial power feeds, cooling system, UPS systems, dedicated A/C units, generator systems and fuel system
o Environment and climate controlled facilities, resistant to seismic activity and other natural disasters, with Class A vaults with OSHA certified fire suppression and EPA certified water treatment plants and clean air fire extinguishing systems (CAFES)
o Level 4 (highest) security rating, 24/7 armed security, maintenance & service operation
o Finger scanners for physical access, motion detectors, CCTV monitoring & camera tracking
o Failed account access attempts are logged and reviewed to prevent unauthorized access
7. Privacy and Security of your Data
With such low rates, a lot companies provide cheap data storage for alterior motives - data mining. That's right, it says right in their User Agreement that they are free to use your own "private" data for their own marketing purposes. If that doesn't bother you, be sure to check the regulatory compliance laws that affect your industry. If you use a data backup company that mines your data, you won't pass an audit and can face serious fines and penalties for compromising the privacy and security of your clients' private data.
With www.BusinessClassBackup.com, you set your own private encryption key, which we never have access to. Your data is encrypted before leaving your computer, in transit and stored at our data centers, using bank-level 128-bit AES encryption, so without the key it cannot be accessed.
8. Bottom Line: How valuable is your clients' data, and your reputation?
Can you risk your clients' data, and your reputation, on an unproven, cut-rate backup service just to save a few bucks?
Posted by Josh Wilmoth | October 7, 2008 6:50 PM