Carbonite Pro for Small Business
Carbonite’s small business version Carbonite Pro was launched in February of this year and since then we have received hundreds of enquiries from small business owners and probably more so from resellers keen to be able to offer their small business customers a solution that is more tailored for them.
To date all we have been able to do is point you to the US site and advise that although you can trial the program for 30 days, you can’t actually buy it at the moment if you live outside of the US. Quite frustrating for all of us.
Well some good news finally on this front with the US advising (following a post I placed on our Facebook page) that residents and small businesses outside of the US can now buy Carbonite Pro directly from the US.
The next step is for it to be made available directly from Australia with Australian pricing and local support much the same way we have it set up for Carbonite at the moment. This is on its way, we just have to be a little patient.
Lets however look at Carbonite Pro a little closer. The backup process and systems behind Carbonite Pro are very much the same as what you would be used to if you have trialled or are using Carbonite already. Its automatic backup and incremental, ie Carbonite will backup the file in full once at the beginning and will then only backup the changes made to it from then on. This means that you aren’t backing up the whole file day in day out and wasting precious bandwidth. It also means that at any time your backup is the latest whole version of the file.
One interesting change however is that there are no restriction on bandwidth made available to business users at Carbonite’s end, this means that your uploads will be much faster. Given you would most likely also have more to backup, Carbonite has given business uers a greater priority.
The everyday version of Carbonite was developed with a licence of one subcription per PC. ie you paid your $71.99 per pc and you could backup as much as you wanted on that PC (as long as it was stored lcoally on the hard drive). Carbonite Pro is a litle different in this regard and once again it has been tailored for the business end and assumes that you are most likely to have mutliple computers in the office and aren’t going to want to manage multiple licences as many small businesses has done so far. Its also very different because you can now backup network folders as well as external drives making it a real business solution.
Once you login to Carbonite Pro you are presented with a Dashboard. This is like your Control Panel for the application. From here you can control who gets access and what they can backup. You also get important information about how much is being backed up.
So the way that Carbonite Pro works is that from the Dashboard you enter a person’s email address and you then invite them to install Carbonite. The installation process is the same as with the everyday version except that everythig you now backup is connected through to the main account. Through the dashboard, the ‘Administrator’ can now see who is backed up and how much. They can also see the total being backed up at the moment and what tier they will fill into this month in terms of their billing.
The Dashboard gives you a few key statistics:
- My Storage Plan – the plan I am on
- Total Storage Used – backup so far
- % Utilization – how much of my plan I am using
- Files Backed Up – files count
- Number of Users – who many users have installed Carbonite Pro via this account
- Number of Computers – the number of computers on the account
- Average GBs/Computer – average GB per PC
- Subscription – Subscription ID
- Subscription Start Date – When it started (remember there is no contract period)
- Next Payment Due – Next bill date
- Last Bill Amount – what you paid last month
The Dashboard gives you an overview of each user, their computer name and alerts relevant to that user/PC eg backups haven’t been run for some time because the computer has been turned off.
Unlike the simplicity of a flat $71.99 per PC pa, Carobnite Pro has tiered pricing based on your volume. Each month, Carbonite evaluates how much data you have and bills you according to the published tiers. Remember you are never locked into these tiers, you simply move up and down as your backup needs change.
One thing to note with pricing is that you should do a simple calculation first before you simply jump straight into Pro. If you had for instance 3 PCs in the office, and each of them was backing up 70GB, using the everyday version of Carbonite you would be charged $216 pa. With Carbonite Pro, you wouldn’t be charged for 3 accounts, you would instead be charged on the total amount of backup that you had. In this case its 210 GB and US$150 per month or US$1800 pa. Take not however that with Pro the 210 GB could be shared across 20 computers if you wanted, it doesn’t need to be limited to the 3PCs (as it does with the everyday version). Therefore as the business grows, you don’t need to buy new licences, you simply invite new PCs and your account gets updated according to how much you are using. The 210GB could also cover external drives. Also important to note is that the Carobnite Pro account doesn’t need to only cover PCs within the office, it could extend to remote staff or even family members. Bare in mind however that an administrator can see what and who is backing up.
Support is also an important consideration. I will be upfront here and say that if you are going to buy Carbonite Pro (via the US), we can try as much as we can to assist you from Australia but your main support point will need to be the US. Once the Australian version comes out and your account is set up locally, we will be able to help you out a whole lot more.
So what do you get in terms of support? You get access to free phone, email and chat support. Phone support hours can be found here and are in US times (Boston times). Chat support is 24/7 and very easy to use. This is what I recommend you start with and then if you can’t get your issue resolved, get on the phone.
So if you are a reseller looking for a solution for small businesses that is simple to set up, then trial Carbonite Pro. If you have had any experience with the everyday version of Carbonite which is used by hundreds of thousands of users around the world, you will be much impressed with what Carbonite Pro has to offer you and your clients.
