Digging Inside The PC For The Cloud
Company:
Headquarters: New York, N.Y.
Technology Sector: Software
Key Product: Nomadesk
Year Founded: 2004
Number of Channel Partners: 3 worldwide
Ideal Channel Partner: Small Business Focused Solution Provider
Why You Should Care: Nomadesk, which provides technology that lets users build a virtual drive on their PC that can be accessed across the Internet, is just now building an SMB/SOHO channel, giving solution providers an opportunity to get in at the ground floor.
The Lowdown: SMB and SOHO companies can now build their own small data storage and file access cloud with the help of their solution providers and Nomadesk.
Nomadesk is the developer of file server software that creates a virtual drive on a customer PC. Once that drive is created, users can put encrypted data on that device, back it up to some cloud storage offering, and let others access that data.
The software also automatically senses when the PC is connected online to auto-sync the virtual drive's data from the PC to the Internet. It can also be used to synchronize that data to multiple PCs automatically, said Daniel Rudich, vice president of business development at Nomadesk
For a typical use case, Rudich cited his own use of the Nomadesk software to make a virtual desk on his home PC.
"I have a desktop at home and a laptop for on the road," Rudich said. "All changes I make on the road are synced to my desktop. When I go home, I can work on my desktop. Then when I go on the road again, I take my laptop and I'm ready to go and to access my data. Or I can not grab my laptop, but instead can access my data from any PC."
Nomadesk has an unusual pricing model for its software. The company charges $15 per month per file server instance, but allows the data to be shared by an unlimited number of users.
The company late last month introduced the ability to allow service providers to create master accounts in order to make Nomadesk a part of their own services offerings, as well as a new channel program to let solution providers bring the service to their customers and get recurring revenue.