Backup Anytime

EMC would appear to be utilising their data backup acquisitions as a group rather than as separate distinct product offerings. It is hard to tell if this was the plan from the outset but given that EMC paid through the nose (at least according to most technology financial analysts) for these acquisitions logic would say they wanted them all more or less from the outset. The three acquisitions which come to the fore in EMCs latest consumer offering are Mozy, Retrospect backup software and Iomega external drives.

If you buy an iomega hard drive it will be bundled with a download of Retrospective backup and you will have access to Mozy storage. Regardless of what people say about Mozy, it has to be taken seriously since the EMC takeover. EMC have a very distinguished history of success at corporate level. The difficulty here is that this is not corporate level stuff. It is effectively EMCs entry in to the domestic market. The company which sold hardware at up to millions a piece (such as ATM data technology) is not selling bundled products and services to the little boy who has a games macing in his bedroom. Of course these products are not sold as EMC. The original providers names have been retained.

This approach is smart as it gives the group access to Customers in the growing (market size and individual requirement size) home market which was neither lucrative nor manageable in years fone by. Additionally, this does not interfere (it is anticipated) with EMCs blue chip technology status at corporate level.

The official line from EMC regarding the iomega, mozy, retrospective bundle is;

“For the average consumer who’s purchasing an Iomega device, they don’t want to deal
with multiple things and installing them separately”

That is the case with savvy home users who would have used them separately but in the case of users who would only have bought an iomega product it is an introduction to new products and services and increases billing opportunities for the group.

Overall however, this should be considered a good consumer level offering for the non techie and will increase data protection levels for the end users who go with the offerings.

Some quarters are referring to this as a beta for SME market level. The difficulty here is that smart money in SME and certainly larger companies will not consider the acquisition of a new drive as a step towards data backup. They will see data backup as a separate entity and a drive as a replacement to an existing local store. The guy who walks in to high street store and buys a hard drive to “backup” his data (as against replace an existing drive) does not know much about the cloud market and may consider the bundle. The business user however will incorporate online backup on its own merit and will acquire new hardware through local I.T. support. Local I.T. support will likely have little respect for bundled products and ignore the offering or even seek an alternative drive which is unbundled.

While EMCs usage of the Mozy name and disinclination to re-brand as EMC is likely a result of a decision to protect the EMC name from the home market, it is would also appear that the MOZY name is the better of the two for the home market given its pervasive web presence and name in the home user online backup market.