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As Google Ponders Storage, Amazon Scores With VARs
10:25 AM EST Fri. Nov. 30, 2007
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Jungle Disk's Wright said he is excited about Google entering the on-line backup market, one that is still full of startups like his company. "Google getting in this market will help push the market," he said. "Google benefits us by validating the market."
However, he said that the on-line backup market will be monetized differently than the ad-driven model Google currently uses. "There are a lot of ad-driven online photo storage sites," he said. "But our users' primary concern is the security of their data. We offer complete encryption so no one else, including us or Amazon, can see their data."
Boebel at Webmail.us said that Google's move is interesting. "Competition is good for this space," he said. "It might drive prices down."
Fisher at Elephant Drive said Google's "imminent" entry into the online storage space is not new news. "It comes up every few months, and then dies down," he said. "Google says it will offer a product. Some part will be free, some will be paid. But we've seen no performance information."
The online data backup market has been heating up lately as a host of vendors and service providers large and small enter the fray.
EMC in May acquired Berkely Data Systems, developer of the technology behind the Mozy online backup business, for $76 million.
Hard drive vendor Seagate late last year acquired online backup developer EVault for $185 million to go after the small business data protection market. EVault recently unveiled its new EVault Unified Recovery platform, which now includes such features as data deduplication, replication of data to a secondary site for disaster recovery, and data self-healing capabilities.
Other storage hardware and software vendors who have recently moved into the online backup market include Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Iomega, and Symantec.
In addition, several small vendors are also targeting the online backup space, often with a channel model that allows solution providers to either resell the services hosted by the vendor or host the services themselves.
