Dave's Blog

Labor Day Giveaway. Tweet to Win a Free Year of Carbonite!

sarah — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 16:08:18 GMT

Before Carbonite introduced the flat fee/automatic/unlimited online backup concept to the world, backing up data was a very labor-intensive process. Saving to external drives, CDs or DVDs and then transporting them to safety deposit boxes for secure offsite storage requires a great deal of effort.

Our objective has always been to provide a simple, secure, affordable way to back up your data offsite.

In this spirit, and in honor of Labor Day, we're giving away a free one year subscription to a lucky @carbonite follower. This account is good for unlimited backup as well as remote access to all of your backed up files from any computer, iPhone or Blackberry Smartphone. If the winner is already a Carbonite subscriber, we'll extend their subscription for another year.

The rules are simple:

Follow @carbonite on Twitter.
Retweet the following message between 12:01 am EST and 11:59 pm EST on Friday September 3: I entered Carbonite’s Labor Day giveaway. Enter to win a subscription by following @carbonite & RT this. http://bit.ly/c6gfYv

We’ll announce the winner here and on Twitter. Good luck!

//Chris

More Hardware for Carbonite’s Management Team – Our VP Marketing gets “40 under 40” award!

ali — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 17:42:14 GMT

After five years of growing our business, Carbonite's management team seems to suddenly be on the awards track: First our CTO Jeff Flowers won "CTO of the Year" from the Massachusetts Tech Leadership Council. Then I won the Ernst and Young "Entrepreneur of the Year" award, and Andrew Keenan won "CFO of the Year." Now our brilliant marketing VP, Swami Kumaresan, was awarded one of the "40 under 40" executives in New England by the Boston Business Journal (BBJ). None of these awards would have been possible if it weren't for the fantastic talent we have in our 130+ strong team. On a related note, the company was also chosen one of Boston's Best Places to Work by the BBJ a few months ago.

Swami has a math degree from Yale. You probably think that Marketing is all about coming up with cool advertising slogans and punchy TV ads. That's part of it. But it's also all about numbers. Every ad slogan, every color choice, every signup page has to be tested and tested again. Tons of data have to be analyzed to figure out what appeals most to our customers and makes it easy for them to sign up and use our products. While it might seem counterintuitive to those of us who are not marketers, a math degree is probably the perfect background for this kind of job. Congratulations, Swami.

— Dave
CEO, Carbonite

“Before you build the product, write the ad.”

ali — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 15:40:27 GMT

This sound bite, picked up by a reporter for Inc Magazine when she interviewed me last month as part of her story on Carbonite (we came in as the 9th fastest growing private company in the US, and #1 in technology) has been tweeted and retweeted by scores of people over the last few days. Since it seems to have struck a nerve, I thought it might be a good idea to add a little color to my comment.

I'm sure you've heard the expression "A solution looking for a problem." Unfortunately, a lot of products get built before their inventors really stop to think about who's going to buy them, or even why anyone would buy them. My mantra to engineers — "Write the ad!" forces them to think about who we're going to sell our product to, what problem the product solves, and why someone would want to buy it. If you can't figure out how to convey this value proposition in a limited number of words, your odds of success are slim.

I'm not saying that engineers should turn into advertising copywriters. But I am saying that if you can't explain what your product does and why I should care in a few words, how on earth are you ever going to sell it? One good thing about writing the ad first — when you run it by people, you'll know pretty quickly whether your product is worth building.

— Dave
CEO, Carbonite

Carbonite is one of the fastest growing companies in America – ranked no. 9 on Inc. 500 List!

sarah — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 14:54:58 GMT

We were startled to learn this week that Carbonite is the 9th fastest growing company in the country! We are also the number 1 ranked company in the technology category, and the number 1 company in New England! Five years ago, when Jeff Flowers and I were starting the company, we had no idea that Carbonite would be this successful. A big ‘thank you’ to all our customers and the team here who have made this possible!

You can see the full list here http://www.inc.com/inc5000/list and Carbonite’s profile here http://www.inc.com/inc5000/profile/carbonite.

Carbonite Pro Customer appears in Forbes.com story

ali — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 20:20:54 GMT

I was pleased to read this week about one of our most passionate Carbonite Pro users, Richard Gordon of Carlstone Consulting. Richard recently spoke with Gene Marks of Forbes about the importance of small businesses backing up. You can read the full article here: http://www.forbes.com/2010/07/20/carbonite-mozy-internet-technology-backup.html. I couldn’t have put it any better than Richard did when he said about data loss at a small business, “this WILL happen.” Statistics have proven that a majority of small businesses will face data loss and for those where the data loss is major, they struggle to recover and often end up going out of business.

Richard was so convincing that the writer interviewing him, Gene Marks, decided to give Carbonite a try. He found it to be simple to get up and running, which has always been a goal of ours since we started the company. After his trial, Gene decided to continue and become a paying subscriber. The large majority of those who trial Carbonite end up signing up for it full-time because it’s just that easy and they know their data is now protected.

To all our small business customers, we’re eager to hear your story, too. You can e-mail us at testimonials (at) carbonite.com and please cc me directly at david.friend (at) carbonite.com. And if you are one of the small businesses not yet backing up online, join Richard and many others who have been extremely satisfied with Carbonite Pro keeping their files safe.

— Dave
CEO, Carbonite

The Twelve World Cup Winners

Ali — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 20:23:58 GMT

Unless you have been ignoring your television and radio for the past month you will be aware that the World Cup has run its course in South Africa. For many, the tournament has been full of curve balls and back heels. France's shocking exit, the Brazilians not even reaching the final and ultimately the Spanish proving triumphant (and rightly so)? However, they weren't the only winners during the tournament, as all of you who entered our World Cup Twitter competition will know!

We asked our followers to guess how many shots on target would be saved during selected matches. Why? Because we're all about 'saving' our customers from losing the 'digital lives' they have saved on their hard drives. We make certain Carbonite Online Backup 'saves' your data so in the event of a data loss, you get it back quickly and easily, whenever you need it.

We had a fantastic number of entries so a big 'thank you' to all who participated! Congratulations to all 12 winners of the selected matches. They all won a full year subscription to Carbonite Online Backup. What's more, one of these lucky winners has been selected to win our grand prize of a 16GB iPad. We can now announce the lucky winner is @robchilver.

Congratulations again thank you to everyone who took part. For those of you saddened by the end of World Cup, and our competition, do not fear. Be sure to keep checking the Carbonite website, follow us on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook for future competitions and a chance to win.

-Alison

Your Disc is About to Expire – Please Backup Again

ali — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 17:35:21 GMT

Those of you out there manually backing up using CDs and DVDs to protect all your previous files are in for some bad news. Having spent a lot of time and energy backing up, imagine how frustrated you would be to discover years down the line the data you 'protected' by backing up has been lost due to the deterioration of its disc.

Research published last month by the French National Centre for Scientific Research has discovered data stored on physical discs has a limited life span, in some cases very limited.

After testing the longevity of portable media, results showed discs designed to last for centuries rarely lasted longer then five to ten years, and in some extreme cases merely a year! Additionally, the results revealed the life span of a disc can be artificially aged by heat, water and light, increasing its vulnerability.

This is potentially a big issue for both consumers and businesses. Jerome Duc-Mauge, an executive producer of documentary films, is not fully confident in manual backup.

"This is a big drama, this issue of how long these pictures will last. We don't know. The manufacturer says to us, 'Yeah, five years, 10 years, 15 years'."

The question is which would you choose for your 'digital life' insurance? A time-consuming process with a short life span? Or online backup, which automates the process and ensures you can always backup an unlimited amount of data that can not be lost to theft, fire or father time.

If you're reading this, you're most likely already a Carbonite subscriber. But if you're also using CDs and DVDs to backup, make sure you’re double backed up and, as the researchers suggest, you're "spreading digital data rather than keeping it all archived in one place."

-Alison

Carbonite CEO David Friend Named Entrepreneur Of The Year

sarah — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 18:19:23 GMT

Congratulations to our CEO, David Friend, who was named the E&Y Entrepreneur of the Year for New England in the Emerging Technology – consumer and small business category. Dave was awarded this honor last night at a black tie gala at Boston’s Renaisance Waterfront Hotel.

Dave now moves on to the National competition which culminates with an awards ceremony in November in Palm Springs. In his acceptance speech, Dave singled out Jeff Flowers, Carbonite’s CTO and Dave’s business partner for over 30 years, as the person whose technical brilliance made this award possible.

We’ve all experienced Dave’s passion for Carbonite. Carbonite is Dave’s sixth company over a span of nearly 40 years. Those of us who know Dave and have had the privilege of working with him realize that he neither needs or nor seeks the kind of recognition that was awarded him last night. The E&Y Entrepreneurship award is certainly the most prestigious award an entrepreneur can win, and even though we almost had to drag Dave to this competition, we’re very proud that he won. After all the companies he’s founded, all the jobs he’s created, and all the great products he’s introduced to the world, we’re really pleased to see him get the recognition he so deserves.

So congratulations, Dave. We proud of Carbonite and we’re proud of you as our leader.

-Alison

Best Places to Work Update: Carbonite is #6!

sarah — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 14:38:00 GMT

In a previous post, Dave mentioned that the Boston Business Journal named Carbonite one of the top 60 companies to work for in Massachusetts. At an awards breakfast on Friday morning, the 60 companies were ranked in three categories, and I'm happy to announce that Carbonite was ranked No. 6 in the midsize category. Carbonite was one of 440 companies considered for this highly-coveted recognition.

The honor highlights Carbonite's achievements in creating a positive work environment that attracts and retains employees through a combination of employee satisfaction, working conditions and company culture. Carbonite's entire workforce was surveyed on these attributes throughout the spring and the results were analyzed and scored to rank the best and brightest places of employment throughout the Boston region.

We've had fantastic journey throughout the first half of the year with our Carbonite Pro and iPhone and BlackBerry smartphone app launches, and we appreciate the contributions and dedication from every employee here at Carbonite. We're proud of the team's accomplishments and are delighted our hard work is recognized through the positive environment we've established at Carbonite. Congratulations to all of the Best Places to Work recipients featured in the June 11 edition of the Boston Business Journal!

— Alison

World Cup Twitter Competition – Tweet to Win

sarah — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 14:36:00 GMT

It may have escaped your notice, but the FIFA World Cup is almost upon us. We're big fans here at Carbonite, especially of the goal keepers. Why is this? Because we're both all about saving. Goal keepers save shots on goal, we save people's data.

During World Cup, we're running a Twitter competition asking you to guess how many goals will be saved during selected World Cup matches. One lucky winner will win a brand new 16GB Wifi iPad, worth $629 (£429.00), and 12 entrants will win a full year subscription to Carbonite, worth $54.95 (£41.95) each.

To enter all you need to do is watch out for World Cup tweets from @carbonite and RT with your guess of the number of saves for each match. For example, when you see this tweet:

World Cup competition: Round One England vs USA [how many shots saved?] RT for chance to win an iPad and Carbonite online backup #WC2010

You need to retweet with:

RT @carbonite World Cup competition: Round One England vs USA [3 saves] RT for chance to win an iPad and Carbonite online backup #WC2010

As soon as you tweet, you'll be entered into the competition. You can tweet a guess for as many matches as you like, but only one guess per match per user will be counted. Winners will be selected at random from entries with correct guesses. Any guesses after kick-off will not count.

We'll be running the competition on the below matches. Keep an eye for our tweets before each match and make sure you enter!

ROUND 1 - England Vs USA (12th June 2010)
Stat: Total Shots on Target Saved
ROUND 2 - Slovenia Vs USA (18th June 2010)
Stat: Total Shots on Target Saved
ROUND 3 - England Vs Algeria (18th June 2010)
Stat: Total Shots on Target Saved
ROUND 4 - Slovenia Vs England (23rd June 2010)
Stat: Total Shots on Target Saved
ROUND 5 - USA VS Algeria (23rd June 2010)
Stat: Total Shots on Target Saved
ROUND OF 16: 1C Vs 2D (26th June 2010)
Stat: Total Shots on Target Saved
ROUND OF 16: 1D Vs 2C (27th June 2010)
Stat: Total Shots on Target Saved
QUARTER FINAL: W49 Vs W50 (2nd July 2010)
Stat: Total Shots on Target Saved
QUARTER FINAL: W52 Vs W51 (3rd July 2010)
Stat: Total Shots on Target Saved
SEMI FINAL: W58 Vs W57 (6th July 2010)
Stat: Total Shots on Target Saved
SEMI FINAL: W59 Vs W60 (7th July 2010)
Stat: Total Shots on Target Saved
FINAL: (11th July 2010)
Stat: Total Shots on Target Saved

Winners notified after each match. The lucky iPad winner will be chosen at random from all correct entries and notified after the World Cup final on July 11th 2010.

View the full terms and conditions.

— Alison

Carbonite named one of the top 60 places to work in Boston

admin — Wed, 19 May 2010 20:53:00 GMT

The Boston Business Journal recently released this year's list of the best places to work. And I'm happy to announce that Carbonite made the list! There were over 400 companies nominated for this honor and the list of the top 60 companies was determined based partly on employee surveys. Carbonite and the other 19 midsized companies will be ranked in order and then honored at a breakfast event on June 11th at the Seaport Hotel & World Trade Center.

I can't tell you how pleased I am that Carbonite has received this honor. There are a lot of smart, hard-working and innovative people who have helped make Carbonite a tremendous success. Our rapid growth as a company has challenged our employees and given them opportunities to do things they've never done before. They've risen to the occasion time and time again and I am very proud of the things they've accomplished. It feels good to know that they enjoy working for Carbonite and take pride in this company. Every employee we have contributes to making Carbonite one of the best places to work in Boston.

—Dave
CEO, Carbonite

Carbonite Wins New England Innovation Award

admin — Fri, 14 May 2010 21:15:00 GMT

Last night Carbonite was selected as a winner of the New England Innovation Awards by the Small Business Association of New England.

Over 160 companies were selected to participate in the awards process and present to a panel of judges why their company should be chosen as one of the most innovative and successful companies in New England.

Carbonite was selected as one of the 16 finalists two weeks ago and, after a final presentation to the judges, we were selected as a winner! Our president and COO, Keith, was even told by one of the lead judges that Carbonite was actually the top point winner with the 50 judges.

Some of the past winners of this award are:

Ben and Jerry's
Genzyme
iRobot
Nantucket Nectars
Staples
The Mathworks

This award means a lot to the Carbonite team. We're constantly working hard to bring innovation into our products, while at the same time keeping them as simple and easy-to-use as possible. Taking complex technology and making it simple is no small feat, and we're honored to be recognized for our innovation and the strides we've taken to make online backup available to the average consumer.

—Dave
CEO, Carbonite

Introducing the Carbonite App for BlackBerry phones

sarah — Tue, 11 May 2010 14:42:00 GMT

A few months ago, we introduced our iPhone app. Since then, I've gotten so much use out of it. I love being able to access my backed up files from my iPhone no matter where I am. If I'm sitting at the airport and someone calls and urgently needs a document, I can just pull it up on the iPhone and email to them. I don't need to locate a WiFi hotspot or worry about booting up my laptop.

I used to use remote desktop software to access files on my PCs when I'm travelling, but I had to remember to leave my PC turned on. Not so with Carbonite — from my iPhone I can get at every file on every one of my PCs even if they are turned off. Hardly a day goes by when I don't use the Carbonite iPhone app. It's just amazing to have all your files at your fingertips.

Now we've made this wonderful functionality available to the millions of BlackBerry users out there. BlackBerry is still the 800 pound gorilla in the mobile market. There are over 30 million smartphones in the US and RIM had a 41.6% market share at the end of 2009 (compared to Apple's 25.3%).

The BlackBerry beta download is available on our web site today (visit www.carbonite.com/BlackBerry), and later in May it will be available for download from the BlackBerry app store. It's free, of course, to Carbonite subscribers.

Here's what you can do with the BlackBerry app:

Browse: You can browse the directory structures on all of your Carbonite-backed-up computers.
View: Bring up PDFs, photos, music and video files, Excel, Powerpoint, Word documents and other text files can be opened and viewed right on your BlackBerry.
Share: You can forward any file via email, right from your phone.

We're totally excited about the mobile market. Stay tuned for more exciting Carbonite mobile apps in the near future!

— Dave
CEO, Carbonite

Carbonite iPhone App passes 10,000 downloads

sarah — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 14:50:00 GMT

I just noticed that we passed 10,000 downloads of our Carbonite iPhone application and it's only been out a few months. It's such a useful app. My wife and I were in the car last week when she got a call from her publisher who urgently needed a copy of a chapter from her latest book. My wife's Mac is backed up with Carbonite, so she was able to find the file on her iPhone and email it to her publisher right from the car.

Recently, our chief operating officer, Keith Cooper, played me a voicemail that a friend of his had left for him. "Keith, this is Todd. I just downloaded your iPhone app. I didn't know you had one until yesterday and it is absolutely awesome! I can view all of my documents from my iPhone… so convenient. So, nice job! Very cool! Extremely cool!"

It's also gratifying to read some of the recent user reviews on the App Store: "Amazing App (5 stars) Unbelievable to have my PC with me. My only wish is for a slideshow for picture files. That would make this app perfect." "Great app, please make for the iPad (5 stars) Great app!" [Our iPhone app works on the iPad, but we'll work on releasing an iPad optimized version in the future – DF]. "Makes me a huge fan (5 stars) Needed it and it was there… Thank you!"

We also got a couple of black eyes, like this post: "Buggy and slow (1 star) Very slow especially when opening a directory with many files. Help file is incomplete with limited explanations. When opening very large PDFs, will crash randomly. App shows old PC subscriptions that no longer exist. Great concept, but needs a lot of polish!"

Well, good news: version 1.1 was just released to the App Store. This new version is much faster and uses much more sophisticated caching. The help section is improved, all known bugs are fixed and expired subscriptions no longer show up. It is much more polished from both a functional and graphical point of view. If you haven't tried the iPhone app, now is a good time. If you're a Carbonite subscriber, it's completely free. You can even use it during the free trial period.

Stay tuned for more product announcements on the mobile front in the months to come.

— Dave
CEO, Carbonite

Why offsite backup is so important

sarah — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 16:02:00 GMT

I ran across this blog post last week:

“

My heart goes out to local music composer Roslyn Catracchia. Thieves broke into her Aina Haina home the other day and stole, among other things, two computers and a backup drive containing her life's work of of musical scores and musicals. That includes the musical score for stage production of "The Princess and the Iso Peanut," which will be running at the Hawaii Theatre this month… if Catracchia had backed up her computer using Carbonite, resurrection of the last files would be a simple download to a new computer.

This reminds me of a similar incident a few years ago involving film director Francis Ford Coppola — someone broke into his house and stole his computer and backup hard drive and he lost 15 years of photos, screenplays, and writing. This sort of thing happens all the time. Lenovo published a report a few years ago that suggested that almost 10% of laptops eventually get stolen or lost.

— Dave
CEO, Carbonite