By David Friend - Chairman & CEO Carbonite, Inc

It’s been ten years since the last Internet bubble, so I guess it’s about time for another orgy of earth - shaking industry hype.  The words “cloud computing” were referred to in an email I got recently from Motley Fool as “The two words Bill Gates doesn’t want you to hear…”  PC Magaine asked rhetorically, “Is cloud computing the next big thing?”  Business Week ran an article called “Computing Heads for the Clouds.”  And Forbes ran a piece that predicted “The Death of Hardware.”  The International Herald Tribune ran a piece on Google’s new data center in Oregon, describing it ominously as “looming like an information-age nuclear plant.”  Nicholas Carr, writing in the Harvard Business Review, goes on to say “Rendered obsolete, the traditional PC is replaced by a simple terminal — a “thin client” that’s little more than a monitor hooked up to the Internet.”

I’m the CEO of a company whose product is frequently cited as the poster child for cloud computing, or more specifically “software as a service” (SaaS).  Carbonite, as a leading provider of automated online backup for consumers and small businesses, keeps everything in the cloud.  So I believe in cloud computing.  But when I see investment advisory newsletters telling me, “But in order to claim your fair share of the wealth, you have to know who the dominant players are – and you have to get invested now,” I wonder what they’ve been inhaling.

The Internet really was a revolution.  Before I had a DSL connection, I had no Internet.  After I got DSL I had Internet.  Is was a binary before/after proposition.  A thin client computer is still a computer.  It is not a monitor, as in the old green screen variety.  It still has to have all the computing horsepower needed for graphics rendering, and more.  Maybe it doesn’t need a hard drive because storage can be done on the network.  But it’s definitely not some great revolutionary breakthrough.  Nor is doing what Google’s doing with their giant data centers - searching through billions of documents in a flash - much more than an evolutionary step from shared database applications that have been running on mainframes, and then servers, for decades.   It’s not the cloud computing that’s bringing in the money, it’s the advertising, of course.  Now with so many people connected to the Internet, companies like Google find ways to provide useful services, such as general information searches, that bring eyeballs to the screens of millions of PCs.  And you know the rest.

What is new, but not all that revolutionary in my opinion, is doing more of the computing on the server and less on the PC.  But again, this is not revolutionary, but rather evolutionary.   If you wanted to do word processing, you used to go to a retail store and buy a CD with Microsoft Word on it, for instance.  Then, with the Internet, you could download the whole thing and install it.  Now with Google Apps, you can actually do your word processing online without downloading software.  Or that’s how it appears.  Of course, the software is for the most part still running on your PC.  When you insert or delete a word, or move the cursor around through your document, that computing is still done locally.  It’s not at all like the old Wang word processors of the past that really did use dumb terminals and all the computing was on the server.  What Google is really doing is lending you the software on a temporary basis, and doing storage and a few other background tasks in the cloud.  Mostly what they want to do is make word processing cheap so that you have to repeatedly go to their web site to get it.  Just another eyeball magnet.  The whole web is really about applications that partly run on your PC and partly on the servers.

So I can see a day when you no longer buy and install applications on your PC.  You will simply borrow them (and cache them, probably) as you need them.  Today, my PC looks different from yours - it’s personalized with all the applications that I’ve purchased.  Tomorrow, it’s like that my PC will be exactly the same as yours - all you would see is some kind of browser.  I could log in on your PC and the screen would look exactly the same as it does on my PC - same word processor, same graphics programs, same set of files.  Then the PC just becomes like a generic device, just like a cell phone.  Stick your SIM card in someone else’s phone, and presto, it looks like your phone.  Except you don’t have to have the physical SIM card.

Boxes software sales are already in the tank - retail stores are cutting back or eliminating their software shelves.  With time, even downloaded software sales will start to decline as people move more to the “rental” model.  But software is not going away for a long time - right now I’m sitting on a train.  It will be a long time before they have high speed Internet on this train.  I know it’s possible, but this is the USA where our public transportation infrastructure isn’t exactly the highest priority.  Until that day comes, I need software and I need my hard drive.  And when I get home and finally do connect to the Internet, I’ll be glad to have all my work automatically backed up in the cloud.

More information on Carbonite can be found at www.carbonite.com.au

Adrian recently (last 12 months) purchased a new desktop PC for her work.  She saved all of her client’s documents on her hard drive ‘My Computer’.

Unfortunately for her, the hard drive on her newish PC crashed and failed. Worse still, was that she never backed up her work. Not even to a USB stick.

Adrian contacted her PC guy her advised her that she should send her hard drive to a hard drive restore centre in Melbourne who would weave some magic and restore as much of her data as they could.

Adrian received her data back luckily for her and so she could continue to work, but the bill was $2,500. I seriously couldn’t believe my ears.

Adrian saw a Carbonite listing I had placed in a Women’s Business Forum and contacted us wanting to find out more. She couldn’t believe how affordable it was.

She advised me that the data restore bill would cost her a month’s takings. That is quite a bit for a small business in today’s environment.

After completing her 30 day trial, Adrian has since purchased a 12 months subscription.

Carbonite last week launched its Australian affiliate program. We have teamed up with Clix Galore a network with local presence here in Australia and who service hundreds of Australia and o/seas affiliates and merchants.

The Carbonite affiliate program consists of two campaigns:

Lead - Carbonite offers $1 for each trial download of the Carbonite program. Visitor must download and install the application on to their PC.

Sale - Carbonite offers 10% commission on each sale of Carbonite. A 12 month subscription of Carbonite retails for $71.95, you would therefore be eligible to earn approx $7.20 for each sale.

To find out more about Carbonite, visit www.carbonite.com.au. To sign up to the Carbonite affiliate program click here.

Below is an example of one of our banner advertisements.

I would say that 50% of the 30 day trials that are downloaded via www.carbonite.com.au are from small businesses. I know this because I spend time researching many of the clients that download a trial so that I can get a better understanding of who they are and what services they may require.

Last week, I wrote about a small business client who spent $2,500 to have data restored from her failed hard drive. She was a 1 person business with her computer (MS Office) being the main operating/administration system. This is typical our typical small business client.

The attraction to Carbonite is simply that its automated (most customers aren’t over tech savvy) and its value for money at $6 per month for unlimited backup. For most of these clients who have 1 or 2 machines running their business, Carbonite offers the right solution to backup their MS Office files and accounting/bookkeeping packages.

In previous blogs I have covered MYOB and Quicken as appropriate accounting tools for small business and they certainly are. I have however also discovered that there are many other alternatives out there that are just as useful and probably cheaper and easier to use for a small business.

Below is a quick description of 2 applications that I have discovered over the past few months. If you are currently using one of these applications, or are planning on using either of them, be sure to also invest some time in your backup procedures. If you decide to go online, check us out at Carbonite, unlimited online backup for just $6 per month.

EasyAs Accounting Software
Small Business - Contractors - Individuals

Simple Accounting and Bookkeeping Software that’s easy to use and a pleasure to have.

Perfect for the Contractor, Subcontractor and Small Business Owner from all walks of life. Whether you have an existing business or are starting a business, easyas provides you with bookkeeping and accounting methods designed for those with no previous accounting experience.

EasyAs is currently being used in multiple countries and multiple industries as an alternative to the double entry bookkeeping methods which have dominated the landscape sense the 18th Century.

Download a trial here

BusinessBreeze - Australia’s first ‘click & run’ bookkeeping software
Martex realised that to make business software genuinely easy-to-use, we needed a whole new way of interacting with software. To meet the challenge, we developed from scratch a unique new, user-friendly interface that we call ‘click & run’: minimal number of mouse ‘clicks’ to complete or ‘run’ a task. It really is that simple!

Look at these real, measurable ‘clicks’ found in Martex’s flagship bookkeeping product, BusinessBreeze:

- 1 ‘click’ GST calculation worksheet for BAS
- 1 ‘click’ Profit & Loss statements
- 1 ‘click’ Balance Sheet
- 2 ‘click’ Group Certificate

Ease-of-use is not an empty promise with BusinessBreeze.

To find out more visit www.martex.com.au

How does this offer work?
Inside the box there is a card insert with 1, 3 or 5 activation codes to a free 1-year subscription(s) of Carbonite, limited to 20 GB of storage per subscription. The number of codes depends on how many seats the Trend Micro license covers.

To activate the Carbonite subscription, simply visit www.carbonite.com/trendmicro/au and enter your email address and password as well as your activation code and then click Continue. You will then download and install your 12 month subscription to Carbonite on your PC. You can repeat this step (once) for each of the activation code(s) you have been given. Remember that you only require one subscription of Carbonite for each PC you have.

Did you know that you run a 1 in 8 chance of your PC crashing? That is regardless of how old the PC is. The reality is that no matter how powerful or efficient they make computers they will always fail, at some stage for whatever reason (sometimes you don’t even have to use it for it to fail).

When you invest in a financial application such as Quicken, you not only forgo the money for the license, you also invest hours upon hours of data entry, analysis and reporting. Obviously Quicken is smart enough to allow you to back-up its files to your C:/ or another drive. For most however, C:/ will do. Well, it will until that crash anyway. The question you need to ask yourself is who is backing up your computer. A: NO BODY!

If the information you hold within your Quicken application is worth more than $71.95 to you and your livelihood, then you might want to consider saving yourself a lot of heart ache by backing it remotely.

Why would you go remote and why would you trust someone else with your financial records?

There are obviously alternatives to going remote eg backing to an external hard drive. This works for most, and then the hard drive its self breaks down. The risk you take with external hard drives is that they require you to complete a manual task each time you run your backup. And being hardware, they are also prone to failure.

Remote backup sends your data via the internet to a remote site for it to be stored securely on servers. Companies have been doing this for years, now these services have been opened up to small business and the everyday consumer.

Is there a risk in giving your data to someone else? All backup services use encryption to protect your data whilst it’s being transferred. They also keep it encrypted whist it’s being stored. Businesses who provide these services wouldn’t be in business for very long if they didn’t keep your information secure and protected.

Carbonite is remote back-up, using the internet to transfer your files securely to a place where no one can interfere with them, or lose them. It does this for you automatically, all day every day, and you don’t have to remind it. The beauty of Carbonite is that it is a ’set and forget’ program. For $71.95 per year you can not only back up Quicken, you can back up all of the files on your PC. And with newer versions of Quicken there isn’t any need to even configure it. Once installed, your Quicken files are always backed up. No matter what.

If you are running an older version of Quicken or Quick Books, you might need to consider the following:

The Easy Way
Open My Computer and double-click the icon for your C: drive. Right-click the folder entitled ‘Documents and Settings’ and select ‘Back this up’ from the Carbonite context menu. (If the only option you see is ‘Don’t back this up’, Carbonite was already set to back up that folder.)

The Hard Way
Quicken data files are typically stored in either C:\\Documents and Settings\\<your>\\My Documents\\Quicken\\ or C:\\Program Files\\Quicken\\. (<your> will obviously vary. If you don’t see your own name, your files are most likely in something generic, such as ‘Owner’ or ‘User’.)

Quickbooks data files are typically stored in either C:\\Documents and Settings\\All Users\\(Shared) Documents\\Intuit\\Quickbooks\\Company Files or C:\\Program Files\\Intuit\\Quickbooks

Browse to the folder that contains your files using the information above.
If you see that the files already have colored dots on their icons, Carbonite is already set up to include your Quicken files in your backup. If the files do not have colored dots, right-click the folder and select Back this up from the Carbonite context menu.

I promised to ask Carbonite support and get back to him. I emailed them at 10.30 AEST and received an instant response.

“Larger files such as the pst file are broken into several smaller parts, so once the initial backup of the file is complete only the changed parts are backed up to the server, so yes it is incremental.”

I was satisfied with this answer as it confirmed what I had thought and the opinion I had given to the reseller. However, one of my colleagues asked whether it made any difference if Outlook was open or not, ie if you where using Outlook would Carbonite still to backup your PST file. Good question I thought, and instantly replied Carbonite Customer support with the query.

They must be working them hard over in Boston because I received an answer within 10 minutes, time now being 11 am (AEST). The answer was the following:

“Carbonite uses the Volume Shadow System from Windows to backup open files.  PST files can be backed up while Outlook is open and active.”

So there you have it. For PC owners at home using Outlook and worrying about how to back up all those emails and attachments, to small businesses that use Outlook for client correspondence (mind you the reseller I referred to above serviced small legal firms), you can ensure that your PST files are always secure and backed up simply, easily and affordably with Carbonite.

30 day free trial available.

Interview with Floyd Bradley

You can visit Andy’s program here.

Hackers, viruses, acts of nature — even a coffee cup is capable of destroying years of your precious data.Much of our life is stored in digital form on a computer so doesn’t it make sense that you’d do almost anything to keep that data safe. See original article

Even though this article is from the US, it’s just as relevant in Australia. The article encourages PC users to do something about backing up and goes on to compare both Carbonite Online Backup and Mozy.

This is what it said about ‘How to use Carbonite’. Carbonite puts a lot of focus on keeping its service simple, without the many frills you may get from other providers. At the end of the day, PC users just want it to happen and keep happening (backing up that is) and Carbonite does this well.

Using Carbonite Backup

The first step is downloading their free trial software. It takes all of about 30 seconds to download their 2.8 MB software on a high speed cable connection. The installation takes a few minutes longer, but it’s very informative. Offering audio guides through the entire process.

Depending on how you setup the Carbonite software will determine what files are backed up. As mentioned if the standard install is done then your MY DOCUMENTS and SETTINGS are backed up. You can also override this and choose to manually select which files and folders are backed up.

Adding files to the backup is simple, you simply right click on the file on your computer and select Carbonite -> Back this up. It couldn’t be any easier. Other programs I’ve used you need to fumble around with tree directory menus clicking this and that, but Carbonite backup really has simplified this step.

If you’re backing up several gigs of information you should be prepared for it taking some time to do. But this is primarily only for the first backup. Since Carbonite will only add modified or new files withing folders you have chosen to backup each time.

Backing up and Restoring Files

My initial backup went off without a hitch. It did take sometime, but I didn’t notice any major slow down in my PC while it was going. I haven’t had to do a full restore of all the files, but I have accessed and tested some of them. Everything went as easily as Carbonite’s website suggests it should.

Carbonites Backup Drive Screen

Carbonite Support

From all the consumer reviews I’ve read I’ve got to say that the Carbonite support team sounds like the best in the biz. They offer phone and online support, and those consumers that have called have actually got to speak with a real person. Fancy that, an actual support person in the age of computers.

Verdict on Carbonite Backup

As a backup tool Carbonite backup is at the top of my list. I am still using it to keep files and data safe. The only draw back is that to restore large amounts of data could take some time to download. I love the unlimited space option, also their desktop software is simple to use, and adding files to a backup is easy.

Compared to it’s competitors Carbonite is the sure winner. Download their free trial and you’ll see for yourself.

Carbonite Online Backup offers a free 30 day trial and you only need to provide an email address and a password.

MELBOURNE and BOSTON - October 15, 2008 - Carbonite Inc., the leading provider of online backup services to consumers and small businesses, today announced a major upgrade to Carbonite Online Backup, Carbonite Release 3.7. The new version is based on feedback from Carbonite’s customers about features they wanted to see and includes enhancements such as an easy-to-use interface that allows customers to search for and restore files by name, file type and date.

“We spent a significant amount of time talking with customers for this upgrade of Carbonite,” said David Friend, founder and CEO of Carbonite. “We’ve always had the goal of Carbonite being the simplest online backup to use and we’ve been lauded for our success in that goal, but we are seeking perfection for the day-to-day experience of using Carbonite. We found that our users had some great feedback that, when implemented in Release 3.7, makes Carbonite even easier to use.”

Carbonite also spent time honing performance for version 3.7. Through a series of improvements to the way Carbonite monitors computer resources, Carbonite will offer better system performance during the initial scan and backup upload.

“The initial upload is the most important process the user goes through,” Friend said. “To make the process simple for the user, Carbonite has always worked in the background with little interference to every day computer usage. With these improvements, Carbonite will continue to use very little of the computer’s memory and bandwidth while improving upload speed.”

Carbonite Release 3.7 features other enhancements to the initial sign-up process. Upon installation, Carbonite will now automatically scan a user’s computer for programs known to conflict with the installation of Carbonite. If any such programs are found, Carbonite will provide step-by-step instructions for how to work around the potential conflict, eliminating the need to contact Customer Support for assistance.

Subscribers to Carbonite will be upgraded over the next several weeks to Release 3.7.

About Carbonite
Carbonite launched its Online Backup 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 4 billion files, has restored more than 300 million lost files for its customers and has a large data center where capacity is measured in petabytes. There are Carbonite users in more than 110 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 businesses through numerous channels, including its corporate Web site, major US retailers and international distributors.

For more information, please visit www.carbonite.com.au

For further information please contact:
Arthur Koulianos Carbonite Australia 1300 88 66 73
Shuna Boyd BoydPR 02 9418 8100