McAfee and EMC are teaming up to offer online PC backup services in a move that will help EMC open up another front in its battle with archrival Symantec.
McAfee said late last week at its analyst meeting that it has signed a deal with EMC's Mozy division to offer the Mozy online backup service to its customers, according to Reuters.
McAfee plans to introduce the Mozy service in the second half of the year. It beta-tested a backup service a few years ago but never brought it to market, Reuters said.
Mozy is a part of EMC's new Decho Corporation, formed last year to offer online storage and other online services.
McAfee CEO Dave DeWalt is a former EMC executive.
Mozy is now the base on which EMC is building a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offering.
Symantec in mid-March unveiled its own online backup storage service, calling it Norton Online Storage Service.
Norton Online Backup is based on technology from SwapDrive, an online storage service provider acquired by Symantec last June.
Symantec also sells a business-oriented online storage software service called Symantec Protection Network, which it unveiled about a year ago as its SaaS platform.
Storage vendors have been actively signing deals in the past few months with providers of storage services, especially at the consumer and small-business PC level.
For instance, EMC Mozy archrival Carbonite, a Boston-based online storage provider, has in the past few months signed contracts to provide a similar service with Lenovo, Acer and LaCie.
Austin, Texas-based Caringo, a provider of clustered storage software, signed a similar deal to provide online storage services using technology from Chennai, India-based Vembu.
