Symantec on Tuesday plans to take a first step towards turning itself into a provider of hosted services for small- and midsize businesses.
The security and storage management software maker plans to launch a trial version of a new online backup service called Symantec Protection Network — Online Backup Service. The service is the first of several new services planned under the Symantec Protection Network brand, the company said on Monday.
"Many small and midsized businesses have not had the ability to get the reliable and secure service they want due to cost and lack of resources," Arthur Wong, a Symantec senior vice president, said in a statement. Symantec aims to deliver easy-to-manage services at an affordable price, the company said.
Symantec won't say what other services it plans to launch, but points to its existing software-based products. "If you think about what we're known for, such as antivirus, anti-spam and remote access, you can figure out what we're launching," Chris Schin, director of product management at Symantec, said in an interview.
Symantec has built two data centres to support its online services. The backup service requires installation of an agent on the machine that is to be backed up. The user then logs in and selects what data should be saved. During the beta, Symantec will offer 25GB of free storage space; at final launch the amount of space will depend on the plan purchased. Pricing has yet to be announced.
The online backup service is available to a limited number of testers, but is scheduled to be released in final form early this summer, Symantec said. A second trial service is scheduled to be launched over the summer. "We plan to roll out three or four betas a year," Schin said.
Symantec also offers online backup for consumers through its Norton 360 software. Many companies offer online backup for consumers as well as businesses. These include Asigra, EVault (owned by hard-disk maker Seagate) and Iron Mountain.
Talkback
...but reading between the lines it looks like the service won't be unlimited - the user will have to manually select what files or data need to be backed-up. This means that users will probably have to select how much back-up space they need and pay the associated cost for that level. At Carbonite, we found that the majority of people don't actually know how much data they have on their system and many don't want to have to choose which files to back up and which not to back up - they just want it to happen. We make backing-up easy for consumers as we simply offer unlimited backup for one fixed price - this model is proving very popular. It will be interesting to see how Symantec's offering will go down.
Floyd Bradley, VP of International, www.Carbonite.com