CHEAP ONLINE PROVIDERS?

Many companies have bitten the dust over the years by trying to offer a service at ridiculously low prices. The list of companies will probably continue to grow while current companies attempt to garner market share at the expense of long term sustainability.

The short answer is that most quality online data backup providers do not compete with the super-cheap online backup services.  The market for secure data backup is simply not that cost-sensitive.  Business clients, especially those who recognize the value of their data, are not looking for a ‘cheap’ solution; they are looking for the best solution at a reasonable price.

Here is some point-by-point information:

• Stability of service:  We see companies come and go at the $9.99 (and lower!) price point all the time. One day they are fighting for keywords on the Search Engines, the next day they are gone. In fact, in at least one case, these ‘big players’ even purchased Super Bowl ad space, and raised hundreds of millions of dollars in VC, only to end up bankrupt after a short time. Our software and providers offer a sustainable, cost effective approach to data backup service.

• Number of successful providers:  1,000s of people have successfully implemented our software, and continue to offer the service today at prices which in some cases far exceed the per-month charges available through other channels. 

• Hidden costs:  In my opinion, and based on some research, most ‘inexpensive’ services can actually be considerably more expensive than they initially appear.  Hidden costs can include a-la-carte pricing for setup, service, consultation, support, restore, and everything in-between.   This is a critical, but often obscured and hard to verify, or disprove, point. Also consider the reports of many ex-customers that describe these services as “…add-choked, turtle speed, small accounts with limited features…that change their pricing models regularly and without much notice…” and I think you’ll begin to see the true nature of the services.

• Service: besides being a potential hidden cost, one must wonder what the support quality and availability is for $9.95 (or even significantly higher) a month. When your hard drive fails, who is going to assist you in the process of reinstalling, reconfiguring, and restoring your data to the box? Not a $10 a month service, to be sure.

• Many of our service providers offer the RBackup service as an added feature to an existing product or service line, instead of a stand-alone service.  Convenience, trust, industry knowledge, and familiarity are just a few of the reasons their clients choose to go with an RBS provider. 

• Longevity of the provider:  RBS has been around selling, supporting, and developing new and better products for 17 years. Our technology and our company are built on long term goals and features. Most of the inexpensive online data storage companies are new to the market, and have yet to prove the long term viability of their business model.

• Product Quality:  Features and Functionality on both server and client side are simply far more mature, intuitive, robust, automated, and secure.  Going feature-by-feature with the online cheapos is an impossible task, but I’ll offer you this as a taste of the critical differences between a real data backup service and what’s out there at 10 bucks a gig.

ü Some of the applications we have reviewed do not have a client component at all. 

ü They don’t have a scheduler – or anything similar to a scheduler. 

ü There is nothing automatic (or convenient) about most of the cheaper offerings.

ü Uploads through some services must usually be initiated by the person who owns the computer, if they remember to do it. 

ü The various GUIs are numerous and different, and many involve a VPN-or- FTP-esque login/logout procedure.

ü Many of the cheaper services require customer initiation, after the customer manually establishes an internet connection.

I’ll offer you an article from the remote-backup.com Knowledge Base to further state the case, and marketability, of using real, time-tested software from a real company when backing up.

HOW DO I COMPETE WITH REALLY CHEAP BACKUP SERVICES?
http://remote-backup.com/rbstech/TS100227.HTM