— Dave
CEO, Carbonite

A friend of mine sent me this picture. If only she had had Carbonite!

— Dave
CEO, Carbonite

I got a nice letter from a user who was saved by Carbonite. For those of you who are running your own business, I'd recommend taking a look at her blog: http://www.ecommercediva.com. I was impressed with all the good advice. Here's her letter:

“

As a full-time "multipreneur" with several businesses — most of them virtual — my livelihood is in my computer. Over the years I've had a number of computer meltdowns where my data was lost. I'm a busy woman, never seemed to have the time or discipline to manually backup my data as often as I should have. I learned the hard way several years ago when my computer's hard drive literally melted and I lost almost all of my files and contacts. I vowed "never again!" My data is too important to gamble with.

Desperate for a solution that wouldn't fall victim to my busy schedule or my memory, I turned to Carbonite in January 2007. It was affordable and painless. Set up was so easy a monkey could do it! I just set it and forget it, and it automatically backs up all my important files and program settings, and even my music downloads. In May this year, I had another computer meltdown, and everything on my hard drive got wiped out. This time I was prepared — I simply retreived my data from Carbonite and I was back up and running pretty soon afterwards. What a relief.

Regards,

Jamila

— Dave
CEO, Carbonite

I wanted to bring to your attention another very nice review of Carbonite. This one, by Mike, at Simply Offsite is thoughtful and balanced, IMHO. In the comments on his blog, I did try to explain why it's very hard for Carbonite to have an "estimated time to completion" indication for the initial backup like some other backup services do. The reason, in short, is that Carbonite allocates bandwidth dynamically so that it never interferes with your browsing. If you're using the Internet for other things, Carbonite will automatically slow down to get out of the way. So we can't tell you how long your backup is going to take because it depends on whether you'll be using your computer in the meantime. Other backup services transfer data at a steady pace. So while that makes the backup time predictable, it also means that your computer is going to feel really sluggish while the backup is going on – not a good thing.

— Dave
CEO, Carbonite

I just had to comment on a video that I saw on CNN.com (The transcript can be found on the Data Doctors website). The answer given by "the Data Doctor" is a little strange – the guy loves online backup but he doesn't like unlimited backup plans like Carbonite. He seems to think that they are hobbled in some way. This doesn't make an ounce of sense and it would have been good for the "doctors" to check their facts before making such pronouncements. The assertion that vendors with unlimited backup somehow throttle or limit backup speed or capacity in some way is just plain wrong. I know it's not the case with Carbonite, and I suspect that our competitors, like Mozy, similarly do not encumber their unlimited offers. It's amazing how these rumors and "common wisdoms" spread on the Internet and how infrequently experts actually bother to check the facts.

I love these guys for promoting online backup, but I wish they would have reported unlimited backup for the incredible deal that it actually is. I wish they would have said, "With disk storage costs dropping like a stone, vendors like Carbonite are able to offer truly unlimited capacity for a fixed price. Yeah, they probably lose money on a small percentage of their users, but by making it unlimited they keep the user from having to make a lot of compromises and choices."

— Dave
CEO, Carbonite

When Carbonite entered the online backup market in May 2006, everyone in the online backup business was pricing their services by the gigabyte. We introduced the first backup service with unlimited storage for a fixed price. Why? Because our market research showed that people didn't like having to learn new software applications and they didn't like having to figure out what they needed to back up. If your backup is limited to, say, 5GB, you are forced to pick and choose files and folders. We envisioned a service that didn't require the user to do anything other than put in an email address and password.

Many people think that we came out with unlimited backup in order to win the "gigabyte war" vendor A gives you 5GB for $5/mo, vendor B gives you 10GB for $5/mo, and so on. But that's really not why we decided on unlimited backup – the REAL reason was simplicity of the user experience. If you make the capacity unlimited, then the user doesn't have to make any choice – we just back up everything by default.

What happened, of course, is that our direct competitors were forced to switch to an unlimited pricing plan, but THEY DIDN'T CHANGE THEIR PRODUCTS! They missed the point. You still had to learn new software. Every bit of complexity makes it harder for the user and lowers adoption rate.

We are committed to one simple task: protect all the valuable data on your computer with the absolute minimum of effort and at the lowest possible cost to you.

— Dave
CEO, Carbonite

In Carbonite's Customer Support department, we answer thousands of questions each week, and many folks want to know the same things. I've compiled a list of the top ten questions we receive most often and the best (general) answers we can give. These answers are specific to Carbonite Version 3.5. (If you're on an earlier version, log into your account and reinstall Carbonite to get the latest version.) Given the length of some of the answers, I have decided to turn this into a multi-part post. And so, without any further ado, here's part 4:

9. Initially I said I want to back up just "my desktop and documents", but now I want to back up more. How do I do that?

The simplest way to change your backup selection is to open My Computer, right-click your hard drive icon, and select Don't back this up from the Carbonite context menu. It will take Carbonite a few minutes to remove your backup selections, and then the colored dot will disappear from your hard drive icon. Next, restart your computer. Now you can select items for backup. Simply right-click any file or folder and select Back this up from the Carbonite context menu to add it back to your backup selection.

If you wish to switch to the "recommended" option of backing up your documents and desktop, right-click the C:\Documents and Settings folder (C:\Users on Windows Vista) and select Back this up from the Carbonite context menu.

10. What if I get a virus? Will Carbonite back that up too?

Viruses live in and affect executable files. By "executable files", I mean files that can perform some kind of task. In the past, it was safe to say that viruses only affected programs, but these days most documents support some type of embedded macro or scripting language. It's possible that documents created by Microsoft Office or other programs could contain what is called a "macro virus" - a virus that can run when that file is opened by the program that created it. Luckily, these types of viruses tend to be the easiest to correct and remove while the virus is still dormant.

When recovering from a virus infection, my recommendation would be to reinstall your operating system and applications, and in particular a good anti-virus program. Be sure to get the latest virus definition files from the manufacturer of the anti-virus program. (This is usually included as part of your subscription, and the latest definition files can be downloaded via the Internet.) After reinstalling your operating system and anti-virus program, restore your backup, but be careful not to open your restored documents until after scanning them for viruses.

Well, there you go. That's our top ten. I hope you find this information helpful. You can find more detail on these topics by searching the frequently asked questions in Carbonite support. But as always, if you have additional questions, please let us know by e-mailing customersupport@carbonite.com.

— Len

Although it didn't come as a surprise, the news about the SwapDrive acquisition has caused quite a stir in the industry.  Yesterday, we were in touch with eWeek and Backupreview.info, two sites that wanted to share Dave’s view on the acquisition.  eWeek published an article as well as a blog post that included much of what Dave posted on our blog yesterday. BackupReview.info also posted a Q & A to share Dave's thoughts with the online backup industry.

In addition, we issued the following press release:

June 11, 2008

Online Backup Continues to Emerge Mainstream as Old Industry Giant
Snaps up Another Established Backup Brand

BOSTON — (BUSINESS WIRE) — David Friend, CEO and co-founder of online data backup company Carbonite, says online backup is continuing to emerge mainstream, as illustrated by another old industry giant gobbling up an established online backup player.

Symantec acknowledged the truth of reports yesterday that it acquired SwapDrive and its companies, Backup.com and WhaleMail.com, leaving Carbonite as one of the last-standing large independent online backup services.

“Frankly, I was surprised that the price was so low, given how hot this market is,” Friend said. “However, that's the danger of being a white label provider to someone like Symantec. It's like the lawnmower company that sells 80 percent of its output to a major retailer. One day they come along and make you ‘an offer you can’t refuse,’ so to speak.”

In the past year, Mozy has been acquired by EMC and Arsenal Digital was acquired by IBM. In previous years Connected and LiveVault were acquired by Iron Mountain, and EVault was acquired by Seagate Technologies

“The online backup space is hot and everyone is suddenly interested in getting into the game,” Friend said. “Symantec realized you can protect your PC with antivirus, anti-spyware, and so forth, but the most important thing to protect is your data. Only online backup provides that protection. No anti-anything can keep your hard drive from crashing or keep a burglar from stealing your computer.”

Carbonite recently passed its 200 millionth file restored and has backed up more than three billion files for consumers and small businesses.

“One by one our competitors have been snapped up by big old companies and we are standing alone as the top independent backup provider,” Friend said. “We’re poised to become the trusted brand in online backup, much like Norton emerged for anti-virus. With a simple and trustworthy product, we are in a position to continue our rapid growth.”

About Carbonite

Carbonite launched its Online PCBackup™ service in May 2006. Carbonite’s industry-first offer of unlimited backup space for a flat low price revolutionized the market for consumer and small business backup services. So far the company has backed up more than 2.5 billion files, has restored more than 160 million lost files for its customers and has a large data center where capacity is measured in petabytes. There are Carbonite users in nearly 100 countries.

Founded in 2005, Carbonite believes that computer users should not have to think about backup. The company’s mission is to provide an affordable, reliable, secure and easy-to-use solution for the mainstream computer user. Carbonite is available to consumers and small business through numerous channels, including its corporate Web site, major US retailers and international distributors. For more information, please visit www.carbonite.com.

— Alison

Symantec announced today that they have acquired Swapdrive for $123 million. Swapdrive is the white-label online backup company that has been providing the free 2GB offer that is included with every copy of Norton 360. Frankly, I was surprised that the price wasn't higher given how hot this market is. However, that's the danger of being a white-label provider to someone like Symantec. It's like the little lawnmower company that sells 80% of it's output to Sears. One day they come along and make you "an offer you can't refuse," so to speak.

From what we hear, the take rate on the Norton 360 backup option has been pretty good. The bundle definitely makes sense: you can protect your PC with antivirus, 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 $76M. And now SwapDrive for a reported $123M.

Our ambitions go far beyond the white-label strategy of Swapdrive. In the consumer space, Carbonite now has 11% brand recognition. 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. 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. Everyone is suddenly interested in getting into the game. We just cut a deal with a leading PC manufacturer (announcement 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 5 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 backup 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% 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 coursed 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.

— Dave
CEO, Carbonite

In Carbonite’s Customer Support department, we answer thousands of questions each week, and many folks want to know the same things. I’ve compiled a list of the top ten questions we receive most often and the best (general) answers we can give. These answers are specific to Carbonite Version 3.5. (If you’re on an earlier version, log into your account and reinstall Carbonite to get the latest version.) Given the length of some of the answers, I have decided to turn this into a multi-part post. And so, without any further ado, here's part 3:

6. Can I back up my USB external drive? How about my network drive?

At present, Carbonite only backs up local, internal hard drives. It will not back up network drives, external drives, and NAS (network accessed storage) drives. In the near future, we will release a version of Carbonite that supports USB external drives.

7. Can I schedule Carbonite to back up just at certain times?

You sure can! Just double-click on the Carbonite Lock icon in your system tray by your computer’s clock) and select Set Options, and then click Backup Schedule. You can then select the desired times that you would like to back up, or the times that you would not like to back up. By default, Carbonite backs up your system automatically when you add or change files, so you don’t need to set up a schedule at all.

8. How can I view the progress of my backup in more detail than just the percent bar?

Carbonite’s History view can show you exactly which files have been backed up or restored. Hold down the right shift key on your keyboard while you click the Carbonite Lock icon, and select View History. Change the display type to Detail, and you can view a complete log of Carbonite’s backup and restore activity.

To be continued...

— Len