A Day in the Life of a Person with a Disability

Thought you might find this amusing. It shows why I stay clear of Apple. At least Dell and Microsoft sort of try to be helpful. J

 

(The link is safe, it goes to a forum thread on CNET.)

Very interesting. Clock cycles seem low, but I remind myself these are different critters entirely. Having no optical drive could be a problem, but there are ways around that. If true, 65 watts is great, but the $64 question regarding power is what type of connector does the M11x use? Hopefully, it’s the same round 3-pin “Series D” connector as other Dell laptops.

 

It turns out that Kathryn D’s cubicle is in the same row as Chris Byrd’s. I asked him to put us in touch with her, but he hasn’t responded yet. (Thank god I was able to avoid cubicles during my career at Shell! J)

 

I just received the following tweet:

 

ChrisBatDell Nice.. =) "A Brief History of the Alienware M11x w/Left 4 Dead 2 in game video! - Direct2Dell" http://ow.ly/11us9

 

That’s the laptop I mentioned to you. We are NOT in buying mode yet, but this might be the Holy Grail of laptops for me. Is there any chance that you could reach out to this “Kathryn D” creature at Dell?

 

 

 

Yes Bernadete. Richard took care of the battery as one of his last official acts, thank you.

 

You may be right about the merger of Small Business and Consumer lines helping us. At least that should give you indirect access to the Voystra line through the consumer channel.  Don’t get overly concerned about the process of preparing new laptops for me, because it's a lot easier than you probably expect. In most cases, you simply flip over the computer and apply Velcro. Yep, I said Velcro. That’s what mounts a laptop to the table it rides on. You once told me you used to be a tech so you should have no problem spotting the case screw holes and cooling vents. Those are the only two places you don't put Velcro.

 

For the most part, though, most of our interactions will simply be me reporting a hardware failure, and you dispatching a part for the local contract technicians to install. The quicker we are able to complete that cycle the better off I’ll be.

 

You may have noticed that I tend to name my laptops. That undoubtedly seems silly until you know the reason behind it.  My two duty laptops are named after two dogs. There’s Lilly, my service dog for nearly nine years, who has been the epitome of reliability. A laptop gets her name only if it's going to be as reliable as she is. The other dog is Hot Rod, or just Roddy. As her name implies, she's faster than Lilly but less dependable.  Yup, the consumer grade laptops, including the XPS line, tend to become Roddies. Right now, we are on Lilly 4 (your E6500), and the first Roddy (a XPS M1530). Roddy is the one we need to replace toward the end of the year.

 

 

Happy New Year All,

 

First, Richard I wish you all the best.

 

Second, Scott I’ll do my best to help you with your needs,  my concern is looking for a tech that can provide customization of your fleet equipment. Nonetheless I will continue expand my network to help patriots like you. The good news is consumer and small business has merged and I believe this is an advantage to us.

 

How was your holiday? Going thru my mail, saw your email back in December for batteries? Were you able to make a successful purchase?

 

Warm regards,

Bernadete

 

 

There is a lot to be said for continuity of service, and hopefully Dell has learned that. Bernadete has said she used to be a tech so she should have the chops. The real question is, can she come to understand my needs? In any case, Bernadete’s position will likely keep her from being a long-term answer as I don’t only buy what could be called fleet equipment.

 

The M1710 is Lilly 3, and she’s not going anywhere as I’m quite aware of her reliability. She just can’t pull duty on my wheelchair anymore because her service protection ended last spring. You might say she now has a nice safe job on a shelf!

 

I expect Dell may stumble, but they’ll eventually do right by me.

 

Good luck.

 

 

Thanks Scott,

 

It sounds like you have got an great home network setup.  Oh, and I wouldn’t kick Roddy to the curb yet.  I love that form-factor unit.  Very, very reliable.  I got my own Roddy(m1710) at home running Windows 7 on it.  It chases bones around some of the newer systems today.

 

I really hope that you are provided the best service possible.

 

Unfortunately, I may have created an false expectation of service.  Technically, for a year now I wasn’t supposed to be personal working on customer computers.  When an issues came up, a case was supposed to be created and passed on to someone else to work.  This did not appeal to me as I felt any other mishaps from another Dell rep would damage my credibility as I was first primary contact.  Anyway, I did down size through the year but I did not let that effect our relationship because we have a history of working together, and besides your cool guy ;)

 

At this time I really have no idea what kind of service you can expect.  However, Bernadete appears to be really good at what she does and I expect she will do the right thing.

 

Now, just because I will no longer be at Dell doesn’t mean you can’t tweet every now and then with one of your smart comments ;)  You take care of your of yourself and have a great New Year!

 

Sincerely,

 

 

 

Rich,

 

On your last day with Dell, I thought you might like to know how things are going as a result of your sustained efforts. Lilly 3, the M1710, has found another life as the custodian of a 1TB harddrive that I use as my 3^rd-level backup archive. HotRoddy, the M1530, in addition to being my reserve laptop, has taken on the job of feeding those huge backup image files over my network to Lilly 3. I have a little USB-powered 450GB harddrive that’s the primary backup for Roddy and Lilly 4. I connect it to whatever laptop I’m using to gather the backup, and then put it on Roddy to copy to Lilly 3. Meanwhile, the E6500, Lilly 4, plods along reliably doing its job as best as it can. In the background is an old Dimension 4600 you aren’t even aware of, named Nemesis, that’s my print and server for one game. Everything is up and running smoothly for now.

 

I don’t doubt that I’ll hear from Ramon next week regarding a replacement contact, and I hope Bernadete can pinch in in the meantime to keep me going. Roddy will have to be retired in the coming year because her service contract expires. Likewise, Nemesis is way, way overdue so Dell stands to benefit from continuing our positive relationship.

 

I wish you the best in whatever you do in the new year.

 

Scott

This is perhaps the best Security Now! episode ever. Everyone and their dog should listen.

There is a lot to be said for continuity of service, and hopefully Dell has learned that. Bernadete has said she used to be a tech so she should have the chops. The real question is, can she come to understand my needs? In any case, Bernadete’s position will likely keep her from being a long-term answer as I don’t only buy what could be called fleet equipment.

 

The M1710 is Lilly 3, and she’s not going anywhere as I’m quite aware of her reliability. She just can’t pull duty on my wheelchair anymore because her service protection ended last spring. You might say she now has a nice safe job on a shelf!

 

I expect Dell may stumble, but they’ll eventually do right by me.

 

Good luck.

 

 

Thanks Scott,

 

It sounds like you have got an great home network setup.  Oh, and I wouldn’t kick Roddy to the curb yet.  I love that form-factor unit.  Very, very reliable.  I got my own Roddy(m1710) at home running Windows 7 on it.  It chases bones around some of the newer systems today.

 

I really hope that you are provided the best service possible.

 

Unfortunately, I may have created an false expectation of service.  Technically, for a year now I wasn’t supposed to be personal working on customer computers.  When an issues came up, a case was supposed to be created and passed on to someone else to work.  This did not appeal to me as I felt any other mishaps from another Dell rep would damage my credibility as I was first primary contact.  Anyway, I did down size through the year but I did not let that effect our relationship because we have a history of working together, and besides your cool guy ;)

 

At this time I really have no idea what kind of service you can expect.  However, Bernadete appears to be really good at what she does and I expect she will do the right thing.

 

Now, just because I will no longer be at Dell doesn’t mean you can’t tweet every now and then with one of your smart comments ;)  You take care of your of yourself and have a great New Year!

 

Sincerely,

 

 

 

Rich,

 

On your last day with Dell, I thought you might like to know how things are going as a result of your sustained efforts. Lilly 3, the M1710, has found another life as the custodian of a 1TB harddrive that I use as my 3^rd-level backup archive. HotRoddy, the M1530, in addition to being my reserve laptop, has taken on the job of feeding those huge backup image files over my network to Lilly 3. I have a little USB-powered 450GB harddrive that’s the primary backup for Roddy and Lilly 4. I connect it to whatever laptop I’m using to gather the backup, and then put it on Roddy to copy to Lilly 3. Meanwhile, the E6500, Lilly 4, plods along reliably doing its job as best as it can. In the background is an old Dimension 4600 you aren’t even aware of, named Nemesis, that’s my print and server for one game. Everything is up and running smoothly for now.

 

I don’t doubt that I’ll hear from Ramon next week regarding a replacement contact, and I hope Bernadete can pinch in in the meantime to keep me going. Roddy will have to be retired in the coming year because her service contract expires. Likewise, Nemesis is way, way overdue so Dell stands to benefit from continuing our positive relationship.

 

I wish you the best in whatever you do in the new year.

 

Scott

Rich,

 

On your last day with Dell, I thought you might like to know how things are going as a result of your sustained efforts. Lilly 3, the M1710, has found another life as the custodian of a 1TB harddrive that I use as my 3^rd-level backup archive. HotRoddy, the M1530, in addition to being my reserve laptop, has taken on the job of feeding those huge backup image files over my network to Lilly 3. I have a little USB-powered 450GB harddrive that’s the primary backup for Roddy and Lilly 4. I connect it to whatever laptop I’m using to gather the backup, and then put it on Roddy to copy to Lilly 3. Meanwhile, the E6500, Lilly 4, plods along reliably doing its job as best as it can. In the background is an old Dimension 4600 you aren’t even aware of, named Nemesis, that’s my print and server for one game. Everything is up and running smoothly for now.

 

I don’t doubt that I’ll hear from Ramon next week regarding a replacement contact, and I hope Bernadete can pinch in in the meantime to keep me going. Roddy will have to be retired in the coming year because her service contract expires. Likewise, Nemesis is way, way overdue so Dell stands to benefit from continuing our positive relationship.

 

I wish you the best in whatever you do in the new year.

 

Scott

Dianne,

 

I just spoke to Jack, the caregiver who owns the trailer in my driveway. He is hospitalized with uncontrolled diabetes, and probably won’t be released before Friday at the earliest. Even then, it will be a while before he is able to drive at all, much less tow the trailer back to New Caney. Jack’s blood sugar was over 690 when the VA finally admitted him yesterday, and he was in West Houston MC last week. The trailer I can do nothing about right now.

 

Scott

Dianne,

 

Nice to see you’re keeping busy, and at least I don’t have to explain my general situation to you.

 

PMI has been sending me threatening letters about the trailer with two motorcycles currently parked in my driveway. Obviously, the trailer isn’t mine. It belongs to one of my caregivers who is quite ill. In fact, I just sent him to West Houston Medical Center in an ambulance. There is nothing I can do about the trailer right now anyway so PMI can save themselves the trouble of sending me a registered complaint letter and fining me $10 next week.

 

Would you please contact them.

Scott

 

 

 

Ramon,

 

Yes, it is me again. You may vaguely recall assisting me back in August on purchasing a Latitude. I hope the Season finds you and yours well. Now I am compelled to contact you about a different matter.

 

As you can see below, I am losing my primary Dell contact, Richard Bernier, at the end of the year. That’s more serious than it might seem, because the normal service channel is really not capable of meeting my needs. The problem there is that a) I am so dependent on my Dells, and b) I am usually quite able to diagnose any hardware problem. Typically, I only need for my Dell contact to dispatch a technician with the required part as quickly as possible. Richard has also provided answers to technical questions, and furnished preparation of newly purchased laptops to better fit into my environment. In summary, a contact such as Richard is key to maintaining our good working relationship. The last transition was in 2003, and it was frankly difficult. I had to call upon the Executive Escalation Team at least once.

 

I remember my corporate life with Shell Oil well enough to know that this is the worst time of year to look for a replacement; most of the employees are out, but I only learned of the situation yesterday. I imagine Bernadete Padua-Mateo could temporarily pinch-hit until someone is selected. She certainly has both a technical and sales background. However, Bernadete is in Governmental Sales, and I buy products from across the Dell lines as needed. Besides, my understanding is that Bernadete is fairly high ranking, and I’ve joked with Richard that primary contact is more of a role for a lower-level droid.

 

Merry Christmas.

 

Scott

 

 

Rich,                                       

 

This is indeed bad news. I’ve been through the process before, and it was no fun. Dell tends to be a large and faceless creature. It’s for sure that the normal service channel doesn’t work for me at all. You shall be missed.

 

Where are you going?

 

Scott

 

 

 

Scott,

 

I wanted you to know that I will be leaving Dell at the end of the year.  I have been trying to locate someone that can assist you after I leave.  Unfortunately, nothing solid yet.

 

I want you to know that it has been a pleasure assisting you these past years.  Take care!

 

Greatest regards,

 

Richard Bernier
Dell Social Media Group
Dell Inc.
800-822-8965 Ext. 726-8859 | Richard_Bernier@dell.com
Got twitter? You can contact me right now.   Or you can connect with me on Facebook.
Read my blogs at Direct2Dell

 

I agree with Greg Lake.

 

 

Another ally bites the dust.

 

 

Rich,

 

This is indeed bad news. I’ve been through the process before, and it was no fun. Dell tends to be a large and faceless creature. It’s for sure that the normal service channel doesn’t work for me at all. You shall be missed.

 

Where are you going?

 

Scott

 

 

 

Scott,

 

I wanted you to know that I will be leaving Dell at the end of the year.  I have been trying to locate someone that can assist you after I leave.  Unfortunately, nothing solid yet.

 

I want you to know that it has been a pleasure assisting you these past years.  Take care!

 

Greatest regards,

 

Richard Bernier
Dell Social Media Group
Dell Inc.
800-822-8965 Ext. 726-8859 | Richard_Bernier@dell.com
Got twitter? You can contact me right now.   Or you can connect with me on Facebook.
Read my blogs at Direct2Dell

 

Those of us who know Lilly know her to be a large teddy bear. Yes, she is, but she apparently hasn’t forgotten her prime directive. We were in Houston Camera Exchange today, which is in a colorful part of town.  In walks this strange young woman with various traits that clearly mark her as being from another galaxy. She walks over and pets Lilly. Lilly knows that I expect her to play nice so she accepts the petting. However, people familiar with Lilly can tell she’s on Yellow Alert. The hapless woman is under close canine observation under she leaves.

 

Gotta love the killer combination of Shepherdy instincts and Chowish stealth. Good girl.

Ok ok, what’s Dell doing to put Windows 7 on Lilly 4?

Well, let’s review. You have already stated that Carbonite cannot currently meet my needs so it’s out of the running. That makes you simply an expert in the field, doesn’t it?

 

Oh yes, I do blog. That’s just another reason why I say what I mean and mean what I say. I am quite real, with quite real requirements. So far, only Mozy seems to get close to them, but you know the market far better than I ever will.

 

Right now, I’m trying Mozy. But, time will tell.

 

 

You’ll have to tell me!  I can see it on the blogs now: “Carbonite CEO recommends competitor’s product.”  J

 

 

 

So, now that you really know my usage model, which of your competitors would you recommend? (Hey, I can’t imagine a more honest observer under the circumstances.)

 

 

Good points, and thanks again for your thinking on this complicated issue. 

 

Dave

 

 

 

I am struck how our two topics of conversation are converging. You don’t like caps, but that is really what cellular carriers do in practice. The paragraph you cite indicates that AT&T will simply give you a surcharge if you exceed the cap, but that’s not what happens. In practice, if you exceed your limit more than once or twice, your contract is terminated with cause. If you don’t believe me, please listen to past podcasts of Mobile Tech Roundup. The explanation the carriers give is that these data hogs are abusing and overtaxing the networks. That should seem very familiar to you!

 

You don’t like caps, but I think the current Carbonite plan is crying out to be gamed. As I’ve said, l could easily game Carbonite by writing a script to copy my 115GB Music folder to the internal drive in, say, 50GB chunks. As long as the client sees the files in each chunk within every 60 days, your server would obediently maintain a virtual archive. Of course you know what I mean, but we would both rather see a business model where laptop users can back up what they need to without breaking you. I think that means tiering, like it or not.

 

 

Scott: I’m really glad you turned me on to the AT&T pricing, because their wording is actually very interesting.  They are not saying that they will shut you off if you hit 5GB, but it gives them the right to impose additional charges (unspecified) provided that they also give you time to leave first.   I don’t like the idea of a hard cap because your backup just stops working, and that’s a poor user experience.   What I would like to do is find a way to gently limit our exposure to people who are using far more than 150GB.   These serious abusers are very small in number but are huge money losers for us. 

 

Thanks for bringing this to my attention. 

 

 

 

I started to say AT&T is notorious, but the truth is that all US carriers are equally bad. In fact, Verizon recently had to stop saying “unlimited” to avoid legal Hell. I was fortunate enough to have a Verizon manager appeal to Corporate to double my limit to 10 GB for medical reasons (which they no longer do).

 

I have already described my own mode of how I might use Carbonite. If we expand my model to talk about laptop users in general, it is easy to say they don’t use external drives. But wait, isn’t that an iPhone you have? If you connect an iPhone to a Windows machine, it is an external drive. A external drive with a lot of valuable data, and iTunes only backs up what they sell you. If you have a digital camera (I have two), those pictures really can’t live inside your laptop. A laptop is a lot like a city’s downtown, it is a nexus of activity. However, there isn’t room for much of the data it uses to actually live there! As a result, a laptop becomes a city where the suburbs come and go as needed. Maybe one model is to figure out a way to protect those “suburbs.” You mentioned that you break even at 150GB for $5/mo., and perhaps that should be telling you something. Maybe you should/could sell Carbonite optionally in 150GB chunks. This isn’t necessarily tiering, because you’re focusing on EXTERNAL drives. Your current product covers the internal drives so what I just came up with would be a bolt-on. Indeed, it could be a product users could buy multiples of, much like tiers.

 Cabonite made this week’s episode of Security Now. Check it out.

 

Hmmm.  I did not know that.  I will look at my AT&T contract.  I’m sure I did my initial backup of about 50GB at my desk, so that would have gone over wi-fi.  But most of the time now I’m on AT&T, but the incremental backups daily are pretty minor. 

 

I think what we may need is something in that $100/yr range, as you suggest Scott.  It probably should be capped at some number, but have no restrictions in terms of the drives that would be backed up.   The new product I alluded to, Carbonite Pro, will be coming out in Nov but it is really aimed at businesses, not individuals, so I don’t think it would be a good fit for you.   It seems to me that we need both an entry-level consumer product and one that is a step up for users who need more speed, support for external drives,  and perhaps a premium level of customer support.  I’d be interested in what you think would make sense. 

Dave

 

 

 

None of the carriers are truly “unlimited.” Read your fine print and you’ll find a 5 GB cap.  

 

 

Scott:  Interesting suggestion, but not sure what’s so bad about backing up on EVDO?  I have AT&T for my laptop and back up stuff on the network all the time without any difficulty.   Is your data service metered?  Mine is unlimited, so there’s no cost.  And since Carbonite basically sleeps when I’m typing on my laptop, it doesn’t interfere with browsing speed. 

 

Dave

 

 

 

David,

 

I suppose everyone has their own definition of what’s “economical.” I’m on very limited funds, and even I think your $50/yr. subscription price is obscenely low. I understand that you’re trying to attract customers, but there’s a price-point where you start attracting people who are unlikely to stay for a variety of reasons. I think you’re well below that. I would support both $100/yr. for 300 GB, and then additional tiers.

 

If I may switch topics slightly, there are some changes to your client that would really help laptop users. Most important would be the awareness of the type of internet connection. I’m typing this email on the road to a meeting, and I darn sure wouldn’t like Carbonite backing up stuff on EVDO unless I explicitly order it to. True, Carbonite can be disabled, but it’s actually designed to be forgotten.

 

Meanwhile, I really need to back up that USB drive. Can you offer any ETA on your new product?

 

Scott

 

 

Scott:  The policy is 60 days.   If you delete a file on your PC, we delete it 60 days later.  That gives you plenty of time to change your mind or download the file to another PC using Remote File Access.  If your whole computer is disconnected from Carbonite, i.e., there is no explicit Windows file deletion, we store the files for as long as your subscription lasts. 

 

You’re correct that we should be moving to an archival model, and that is indeed on the roadmap.   However, it just doesn’t work economically with an “unlimited” pricing plan.  Just like any all-you-can-eat plan, your economics are based on averages – you’re always going to lose money on a small percentage of users.  In the case of archiving, large users would so skew the formula that everyone would have to be charged substantially more money, and we would no longer be competitive with vendors who offer tiered pricing.  All the giant users would migrate to us, and the bulk of the average users would migrate to a competitor. 

Dave

 

 

 

David,

 

I am amused to think of Leo paying for the terabytes he backs up! However, your response raises a very interesting and important issue. You say that you’re currently only in the “back up” business, meaning that Carbonite mirrors protected files on internal permanent drives. Very well, but what happens when a file is deleted locally? How long does it take for your client to report the deletion, and then, for your servers to delete the backup? The various comments from Leo in his multitude of podcasts suggest that he uses Carbonite as short-term archiving. Indeed, the distinction between a “back up” and an archive is fuzzy and entirely dependent on the answers to the above questions.

 

In essence, I’m suggesting that those questions have to be answered the same way regardless of a file’s location. After all, Windows doesn’t care where your Documents folder is, so why should Carbonite? Your concerns are valid, but they are equally valid for internal drives. If you have folder X on an internal drive, you can swap files into and out of it. Of course, Carbonite will eventually delete files that aren’t in X presently so why should a USB drive be any different? A drive really is just a folder on steroids.

 

In my case, 250 GB would be plenty. Even 150 GB would be enough, if I can pick the files. But, why should anyone tell me what I can safe-guard? I suppose that’s an argument for tiering. You see, once you get past exceptions like Leo who are drowning in bandwidth, you see a much drier landscape. We have bandwidth, but nowhere near what the San Francisco and New York pundits assume is the norm. Those people who think it’s time for IPTV are in for a wait. Most of America is a good piece below the cloud so ubiquitous real-time cloud-based services are a pipe-dream for us (literally), and will be for the near future. If Carbonite wishes to be relevant in more than a few places, I think you must shift to an archival model because average users simply don’t have the bandwidth to make “cloud” back ups worthwhile. Restoring any large amount of data would be painful.

 

Scott

 

 

Hi, guys.   There’s a technical issue and a commercial issue.  Leo is exactly right about the $5/mo.   We already lose money on a small percentage of our users, and that’s the price we pay in order to make it really easy for everyone.  However, we don’t want to make the economics any worse than necessary or we’d have to raise prices for everyone.  A small number of users already use a highly disproportionate amount of our storage.   The alternative would be to charge by the gigabyte like most of our competitors do, or simply shut off your backup without notice if you get too big, as one of our “unlimited” competitors does.  There’s no free lunch, and none of us can afford to back up more than about 150GBs without losing money at $5/mo.   In a few months we will have a new product on the market that will backup USB external drives, NAS, and any other lettered drives.  But pricing will be tiered by the GB, not unlimited.  I’m sure people will buy one license and back up all their PCs, and that’s fine. 

 

Regarding USB drives, here’s why we don’t back them up today:  What should we do when the drive is unplugged?  Do we assume that the data is deleted and so delete the backup?  If not, then we are essentially archiving the data, not backing it up.  If we don’t delete data when you unplug the drive, someone could fill up an external drive, load it up to Carbonite, erase the drive and fill it up with other data, and repeat.   This is not what we’re getting paid to do and it wouldn’t make any economic sense at all.   If we’re charging you by the GB, then of course we’re happy to archive as well as back up. 

 

Hope that answers the question.  

 

Dave

 

David Friend | Chairman & CEO
Carbonite, Inc. | 177 Huntington Ave., 15th Floor | Boston, MA | 02115
Office: 617-587-1110 | Fax: 617-587-1101
www.carbonite.com  

 

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So, now that you really know my usage model, which of your competitors would you recommend? (Hey, I can’t imagine a more honest observer under the circumstances.)

 

 

Good points, and thanks again for your thinking on this complicated issue. 

 

Dave

 

 

 

I am struck how our two topics of conversation are converging. You don’t like caps, but that is really what cellular carriers do in practice. The paragraph you cite indicates that AT&T will simply give you a surcharge if you exceed the cap, but that’s not what happens. In practice, if you exceed your limit more than once or twice, your contract is terminated with cause. If you don’t believe me, please listen to past podcasts of Mobile Tech Roundup. The explanation the carriers give is that these data hogs are abusing and overtaxing the networks. That should seem very familiar to you!

 

You don’t like caps, but I think the current Carbonite plan is crying out to be gamed. As I’ve said, l could easily game Carbonite by writing a script to copy my 115GB Music folder to the internal drive in, say, 50GB chunks. As long as the client sees the files in each chunk within every 60 days, your server would obediently maintain a virtual archive. Of course you know what I mean, but we would both rather see a business model where laptop users can back up what they need to without breaking you. I think that means tiering, like it or not.

 

 

Scott: I’m really glad you turned me on to the AT&T pricing, because their wording is actually very interesting.  They are not saying that they will shut you off if you hit 5GB, but it gives them the right to impose additional charges (unspecified) provided that they also give you time to leave first.   I don’t like the idea of a hard cap because your backup just stops working, and that’s a poor user experience.   What I would like to do is find a way to gently limit our exposure to people who are using far more than 150GB.   These serious abusers are very small in number but are huge money losers for us. 

 

Thanks for bringing this to my attention. 

 

 

 

I started to say AT&T is notorious, but the truth is that all US carriers are equally bad. In fact, Verizon recently had to stop saying “unlimited” to avoid legal Hell. I was fortunate enough to have a Verizon manager appeal to Corporate to double my limit to 10 GB for medical reasons (which they no longer do).

 

I have already described my own mode of how I might use Carbonite. If we expand my model to talk about laptop users in general, it is easy to say they don’t use external drives. But wait, isn’t that an iPhone you have? If you connect an iPhone to a Windows machine, it is an external drive. A external drive with a lot of valuable data, and iTunes only backs up what they sell you. If you have a digital camera (I have two), those pictures really can’t live inside your laptop. A laptop is a lot like a city’s downtown, it is a nexus of activity. However, there isn’t room for much of the data it uses to actually live there! As a result, a laptop becomes a city where the suburbs come and go as needed. Maybe one model is to figure out a way to protect those “suburbs.” You mentioned that you break even at 150GB for $5/mo., and perhaps that should be telling you something. Maybe you should/could sell Carbonite optionally in 150GB chunks. This isn’t necessarily tiering, because you’re focusing on EXTERNAL drives. Your current product covers the internal drives so what I just came up with would be a bolt-on. Indeed, it could be a product users could buy multiples of, much like tiers.

 Cabonite made this week’s episode of Security Now. Check it out.

 

Hmmm.  I did not know that.  I will look at my AT&T contract.  I’m sure I did my initial backup of about 50GB at my desk, so that would have gone over wi-fi.  But most of the time now I’m on AT&T, but the incremental backups daily are pretty minor. 

 

I think what we may need is something in that $100/yr range, as you suggest Scott.  It probably should be capped at some number, but have no restrictions in terms of the drives that would be backed up.   The new product I alluded to, Carbonite Pro, will be coming out in Nov but it is really aimed at businesses, not individuals, so I don’t think it would be a good fit for you.   It seems to me that we need both an entry-level consumer product and one that is a step up for users who need more speed, support for external drives,  and perhaps a premium level of customer support.  I’d be interested in what you think would make sense. 

Dave

 

 

 

None of the carriers are truly “unlimited.” Read your fine print and you’ll find a 5 GB cap.  

 

 

Scott:  Interesting suggestion, but not sure what’s so bad about backing up on EVDO?  I have AT&T for my laptop and back up stuff on the network all the time without any difficulty.   Is your data service metered?  Mine is unlimited, so there’s no cost.  And since Carbonite basically sleeps when I’m typing on my laptop, it doesn’t interfere with browsing speed. 

 

Dave

 

 

 

David,

 

I suppose everyone has their own definition of what’s “economical.” I’m on very limited funds, and even I think your $50/yr. subscription price is obscenely low. I understand that you’re trying to attract customers, but there’s a price-point where you start attracting people who are unlikely to stay for a variety of reasons. I think you’re well below that. I would support both $100/yr. for 300 GB, and then additional tiers.

 

If I may switch topics slightly, there are some changes to your client that would really help laptop users. Most important would be the awareness of the type of internet connection. I’m typing this email on the road to a meeting, and I darn sure wouldn’t like Carbonite backing up stuff on EVDO unless I explicitly order it to. True, Carbonite can be disabled, but it’s actually designed to be forgotten.

 

Meanwhile, I really need to back up that USB drive. Can you offer any ETA on your new product?

 

Scott

 

 

Scott:  The policy is 60 days.   If you delete a file on your PC, we delete it 60 days later.  That gives you plenty of time to change your mind or download the file to another PC using Remote File Access.  If your whole computer is disconnected from Carbonite, i.e., there is no explicit Windows file deletion, we store the files for as long as your subscription lasts. 

 

You’re correct that we should be moving to an archival model, and that is indeed on the roadmap.   However, it just doesn’t work economically with an “unlimited” pricing plan.  Just like any all-you-can-eat plan, your economics are based on averages – you’re always going to lose money on a small percentage of users.  In the case of archiving, large users would so skew the formula that everyone would have to be charged substantially more money, and we would no longer be competitive with vendors who offer tiered pricing.  All the giant users would migrate to us, and the bulk of the average users would migrate to a competitor. 

Dave

 

 

 

David,

 

I am amused to think of Leo paying for the terabytes he backs up! However, your response raises a very interesting and important issue. You say that you’re currently only in the “back up” business, meaning that Carbonite mirrors protected files on internal permanent drives. Very well, but what happens when a file is deleted locally? How long does it take for your client to report the deletion, and then, for your servers to delete the backup? The various comments from Leo in his multitude of podcasts suggest that he uses Carbonite as short-term archiving. Indeed, the distinction between a “back up” and an archive is fuzzy and entirely dependent on the answers to the above questions.

 

In essence, I’m suggesting that those questions have to be answered the same way regardless of a file’s location. After all, Windows doesn’t care where your Documents folder is, so why should Carbonite? Your concerns are valid, but they are equally valid for internal drives. If you have folder X on an internal drive, you can swap files into and out of it. Of course, Carbonite will eventually delete files that aren’t in X presently so why should a USB drive be any different? A drive really is just a folder on steroids.

 

In my case, 250 GB would be plenty. Even 150 GB would be enough, if I can pick the files. But, why should anyone tell me what I can safe-guard? I suppose that’s an argument for tiering. You see, once you get past exceptions like Leo who are drowning in bandwidth, you see a much drier landscape. We have bandwidth, but nowhere near what the San Francisco and New York pundits assume is the norm. Those people who think it’s time for IPTV are in for a wait. Most of America is a good piece below the cloud so ubiquitous real-time cloud-based services are a pipe-dream for us (literally), and will be for the near future. If Carbonite wishes to be relevant in more than a few places, I think you must shift to an archival model because average users simply don’t have the bandwidth to make “cloud” back ups worthwhile. Restoring any large amount of data would be painful.

 

Scott

 

 

Hi, guys.   There’s a technical issue and a commercial issue.  Leo is exactly right about the $5/mo.   We already lose money on a small percentage of our users, and that’s the price we pay in order to make it really easy for everyone.  However, we don’t want to make the economics any worse than necessary or we’d have to raise prices for everyone.  A small number of users already use a highly disproportionate amount of our storage.   The alternative would be to charge by the gigabyte like most of our competitors do, or simply shut off your backup without notice if you get too big, as one of our “unlimited” competitors does.  There’s no free lunch, and none of us can afford to back up more than about 150GBs without losing money at $5/mo.   In a few months we will have a new product on the market that will backup USB external drives, NAS, and any other lettered drives.  But pricing will be tiered by the GB, not unlimited.  I’m sure people will buy one license and back up all their PCs, and that’s fine. 

 

Regarding USB drives, here’s why we don’t back them up today:  What should we do when the drive is unplugged?  Do we assume that the data is deleted and so delete the backup?  If not, then we are essentially archiving the data, not backing it up.  If we don’t delete data when you unplug the drive, someone could fill up an external drive, load it up to Carbonite, erase the drive and fill it up with other data, and repeat.   This is not what we’re getting paid to do and it wouldn’t make any economic sense at all.   If we’re charging you by the GB, then of course we’re happy to archive as well as back up. 

 

Hope that answers the question.  

 

Dave

 

David Friend | Chairman & CEO
Carbonite, Inc. | 177 Huntington Ave., 15th Floor | Boston, MA | 02115
Office: 617-587-1110 | Fax: 617-587-1101
www.carbonite.com  

 

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I am struck how our two topics of conversation are converging. You don’t like caps, but that is really what cellular carriers do in practice. The paragraph you cite indicates that AT&T will simply give you a surcharge if you exceed the cap, but that’s not what happens. In practice, if you exceed your limit more than once or twice, your contract is terminated with cause. If you don’t believe me, please listen to past podcasts of Mobile Tech Roundup. The explanation the carriers give is that these data hogs are abusing and overtaxing the networks. That should seem very familiar to you!

 

You don’t like caps, but I think the current Carbonite plan is crying out to be gamed. As I’ve said, l could easily game Carbonite by writing a script to copy my 115GB Music folder to the internal drive in, say, 50GB chunks. As long as the client sees the files in each chunk within every 60 days, your server would obediently maintain a virtual archive. Of course you know what I mean, but we would both rather see a business model where laptop users can back up what they need to without breaking you. I think that means tiering, like it or not.

 

 

Scott: I’m really glad you turned me on to the AT&T pricing, because their wording is actually very interesting.  They are not saying that they will shut you off if you hit 5GB, but it gives them the right to impose additional charges (unspecified) provided that they also give you time to leave first.   I don’t like the idea of a hard cap because your backup just stops working, and that’s a poor user experience.   What I would like to do is find a way to gently limit our exposure to people who are using far more than 150GB.   These serious abusers are very small in number but are huge money losers for us. 

 

Thanks for bringing this to my attention. 

 

 

 

I started to say AT&T is notorious, but the truth is that all US carriers are equally bad. In fact, Verizon recently had to stop saying “unlimited” to avoid legal Hell. I was fortunate enough to have a Verizon manager appeal to Corporate to double my limit to 10 GB for medical reasons (which they no longer do).

 

I have already described my own mode of how I might use Carbonite. If we expand my model to talk about laptop users in general, it is easy to say they don’t use external drives. But wait, isn’t that an iPhone you have? If you connect an iPhone to a Windows machine, it is an external drive. A external drive with a lot of valuable data, and iTunes only backs up what they sell you. If you have a digital camera (I have two), those pictures really can’t live inside your laptop. A laptop is a lot like a city’s downtown, it is a nexus of activity. However, there isn’t room for much of the data it uses to actually live there! As a result, a laptop becomes a city where the suburbs come and go as needed. Maybe one model is to figure out a way to protect those “suburbs.” You mentioned that you break even at 150GB for $5/mo., and perhaps that should be telling you something. Maybe you should/could sell Carbonite optionally in 150GB chunks. This isn’t necessarily tiering, because you’re focusing on EXTERNAL drives. Your current product covers the internal drives so what I just came up with would be a bolt-on. Indeed, it could be a product users could buy multiples of, much like tiers.

 Cabonite made this week’s episode of Security Now. Check it out.

 

Hmmm.  I did not know that.  I will look at my AT&T contract.  I’m sure I did my initial backup of about 50GB at my desk, so that would have gone over wi-fi.  But most of the time now I’m on AT&T, but the incremental backups daily are pretty minor. 

 

I think what we may need is something in that $100/yr range, as you suggest Scott.  It probably should be capped at some number, but have no restrictions in terms of the drives that would be backed up.   The new product I alluded to, Carbonite Pro, will be coming out in Nov but it is really aimed at businesses, not individuals, so I don’t think it would be a good fit for you.   It seems to me that we need both an entry-level consumer product and one that is a step up for users who need more speed, support for external drives,  and perhaps a premium level of customer support.  I’d be interested in what you think would make sense. 

Dave

 

 

 

None of the carriers are truly “unlimited.” Read your fine print and you’ll find a 5 GB cap.  

 

 

Scott:  Interesting suggestion, but not sure what’s so bad about backing up on EVDO?  I have AT&T for my laptop and back up stuff on the network all the time without any difficulty.   Is your data service metered?  Mine is unlimited, so there’s no cost.  And since Carbonite basically sleeps when I’m typing on my laptop, it doesn’t interfere with browsing speed. 

 

Dave

 

 

 

David,

 

I suppose everyone has their own definition of what’s “economical.” I’m on very limited funds, and even I think your $50/yr. subscription price is obscenely low. I understand that you’re trying to attract customers, but there’s a price-point where you start attracting people who are unlikely to stay for a variety of reasons. I think you’re well below that. I would support both $100/yr. for 300 GB, and then additional tiers.

 

If I may switch topics slightly, there are some changes to your client that would really help laptop users. Most important would be the awareness of the type of internet connection. I’m typing this email on the road to a meeting, and I darn sure wouldn’t like Carbonite backing up stuff on EVDO unless I explicitly order it to. True, Carbonite can be disabled, but it’s actually designed to be forgotten.

 

Meanwhile, I really need to back up that USB drive. Can you offer any ETA on your new product?

 

Scott

 

 

Scott:  The policy is 60 days.   If you delete a file on your PC, we delete it 60 days later.  That gives you plenty of time to change your mind or download the file to another PC using Remote File Access.  If your whole computer is disconnected from Carbonite, i.e., there is no explicit Windows file deletion, we store the files for as long as your subscription lasts. 

 

You’re correct that we should be moving to an archival model, and that is indeed on the roadmap.   However, it just doesn’t work economically with an “unlimited” pricing plan.  Just like any all-you-can-eat plan, your economics are based on averages – you’re always going to lose money on a small percentage of users.  In the case of archiving, large users would so skew the formula that everyone would have to be charged substantially more money, and we would no longer be competitive with vendors who offer tiered pricing.  All the giant users would migrate to us, and the bulk of the average users would migrate to a competitor. 

Dave

 

 

 

David,

 

I am amused to think of Leo paying for the terabytes he backs up! However, your response raises a very interesting and important issue. You say that you’re currently only in the “back up” business, meaning that Carbonite mirrors protected files on internal permanent drives. Very well, but what happens when a file is deleted locally? How long does it take for your client to report the deletion, and then, for your servers to delete the backup? The various comments from Leo in his multitude of podcasts suggest that he uses Carbonite as short-term archiving. Indeed, the distinction between a “back up” and an archive is fuzzy and entirely dependent on the answers to the above questions.

 

In essence, I’m suggesting that those questions have to be answered the same way regardless of a file’s location. After all, Windows doesn’t care where your Documents folder is, so why should Carbonite? Your concerns are valid, but they are equally valid for internal drives. If you have folder X on an internal drive, you can swap files into and out of it. Of course, Carbonite will eventually delete files that aren’t in X presently so why should a USB drive be any different? A drive really is just a folder on steroids.

 

In my case, 250 GB would be plenty. Even 150 GB would be enough, if I can pick the files. But, why should anyone tell me what I can safe-guard? I suppose that’s an argument for tiering. You see, once you get past exceptions like Leo who are drowning in bandwidth, you see a much drier landscape. We have bandwidth, but nowhere near what the San Francisco and New York pundits assume is the norm. Those people who think it’s time for IPTV are in for a wait. Most of America is a good piece below the cloud so ubiquitous real-time cloud-based services are a pipe-dream for us (literally), and will be for the near future. If Carbonite wishes to be relevant in more than a few places, I think you must shift to an archival model because average users simply don’t have the bandwidth to make “cloud” back ups worthwhile. Restoring any large amount of data would be painful.

 

Scott

 

 

Hi, guys.   There’s a technical issue and a commercial issue.  Leo is exactly right about the $5/mo.   We already lose money on a small percentage of our users, and that’s the price we pay in order to make it really easy for everyone.  However, we don’t want to make the economics any worse than necessary or we’d have to raise prices for everyone.  A small number of users already use a highly disproportionate amount of our storage.   The alternative would be to charge by the gigabyte like most of our competitors do, or simply shut off your backup without notice if you get too big, as one of our “unlimited” competitors does.  There’s no free lunch, and none of us can afford to back up more than about 150GBs without losing money at $5/mo.   In a few months we will have a new product on the market that will backup USB external drives, NAS, and any other lettered drives.  But pricing will be tiered by the GB, not unlimited.  I’m sure people will buy one license and back up all their PCs, and that’s fine. 

 

Regarding USB drives, here’s why we don’t back them up today:  What should we do when the drive is unplugged?  Do we assume that the data is deleted and so delete the backup?  If not, then we are essentially archiving the data, not backing it up.  If we don’t delete data when you unplug the drive, someone could fill up an external drive, load it up to Carbonite, erase the drive and fill it up with other data, and repeat.   This is not what we’re getting paid to do and it wouldn’t make any economic sense at all.   If we’re charging you by the GB, then of course we’re happy to archive as well as back up. 

 

Hope that answers the question.  

 

Dave

 

David Friend | Chairman & CEO
Carbonite, Inc. | 177 Huntington Ave., 15th Floor | Boston, MA | 02115
Office: 617-587-1110 | Fax: 617-587-1101
www.carbonite.com  

 

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I started to say AT&T is notorious, but the truth is that all US carriers are equally bad. In fact, Verizon recently had to stop saying “unlimited” to avoid legal Hell. I was fortunate enough to have a Verizon manager appeal to Corporate to double my limit to 10 GB for medical reasons (which they no longer do).

 

I have already described my own mode of how I might use Carbonite. If we expand my model to talk about laptop users in general, it is easy to say they don’t use external drives. But wait, isn’t that an iPhone you have? If you connect an iPhone to a Windows machine, it is an external drive. A external drive with a lot of valuable data, and iTunes only backs up what they sell you. If you have a digital camera (I have two), those pictures really can’t live inside your laptop. A laptop is a lot like a city’s downtown, it is a nexus of activity. However, there isn’t room for much of the data it uses to actually live there! As a result, a laptop becomes a city where the suburbs come and go as needed. Maybe one model is to figure out a way to protect those “suburbs.” You mentioned that you break even at 150GB for $5/mo., and perhaps that should be telling you something. Maybe you should/could sell Carbonite optionally in 150GB chunks. This isn’t necessarily tiering, because you’re focusing on EXTERNAL drives. Your current product covers the internal drives so what I just came up with would be a bolt-on. Indeed, it could be a product users could buy multiples of, much like tiers.

 Cabonite made this week’s episode of Security Now. Check it out.

 

Hmmm.  I did not know that.  I will look at my AT&T contract.  I’m sure I did my initial backup of about 50GB at my desk, so that would have gone over wi-fi.  But most of the time now I’m on AT&T, but the incremental backups daily are pretty minor. 

 

I think what we may need is something in that $100/yr range, as you suggest Scott.  It probably should be capped at some number, but have no restrictions in terms of the drives that would be backed up.   The new product I alluded to, Carbonite Pro, will be coming out in Nov but it is really aimed at businesses, not individuals, so I don’t think it would be a good fit for you.   It seems to me that we need both an entry-level consumer product and one that is a step up for users who need more speed, support for external drives,  and perhaps a premium level of customer support.  I’d be interested in what you think would make sense. 

Dave

 

 

 

None of the carriers are truly “unlimited.” Read your fine print and you’ll find a 5 GB cap.  

 

 

Scott:  Interesting suggestion, but not sure what’s so bad about backing up on EVDO?  I have AT&T for my laptop and back up stuff on the network all the time without any difficulty.   Is your data service metered?  Mine is unlimited, so there’s no cost.  And since Carbonite basically sleeps when I’m typing on my laptop, it doesn’t interfere with browsing speed. 

 

Dave

 

 

 

David,

 

I suppose everyone has their own definition of what’s “economical.” I’m on very limited funds, and even I think your $50/yr. subscription price is obscenely low. I understand that you’re trying to attract customers, but there’s a price-point where you start attracting people who are unlikely to stay for a variety of reasons. I think you’re well below that. I would support both $100/yr. for 300 GB, and then additional tiers.

 

If I may switch topics slightly, there are some changes to your client that would really help laptop users. Most important would be the awareness of the type of internet connection. I’m typing this email on the road to a meeting, and I darn sure wouldn’t like Carbonite backing up stuff on EVDO unless I explicitly order it to. True, Carbonite can be disabled, but it’s actually designed to be forgotten.

 

Meanwhile, I really need to back up that USB drive. Can you offer any ETA on your new product?

 

Scott

 

 

Scott:  The policy is 60 days.   If you delete a file on your PC, we delete it 60 days later.  That gives you plenty of time to change your mind or download the file to another PC using Remote File Access.  If your whole computer is disconnected from Carbonite, i.e., there is no explicit Windows file deletion, we store the files for as long as your subscription lasts. 

 

You’re correct that we should be moving to an archival model, and that is indeed on the roadmap.   However, it just doesn’t work economically with an “unlimited” pricing plan.  Just like any all-you-can-eat plan, your economics are based on averages – you’re always going to lose money on a small percentage of users.  In the case of archiving, large users would so skew the formula that everyone would have to be charged substantially more money, and we would no longer be competitive with vendors who offer tiered pricing.  All the giant users would migrate to us, and the bulk of the average users would migrate to a competitor. 

Dave

 

 

 

David,

 

I am amused to think of Leo paying for the terabytes he backs up! However, your response raises a very interesting and important issue. You say that you’re currently only in the “back up” business, meaning that Carbonite mirrors protected files on internal permanent drives. Very well, but what happens when a file is deleted locally? How long does it take for your client to report the deletion, and then, for your servers to delete the backup? The various comments from Leo in his multitude of podcasts suggest that he uses Carbonite as short-term archiving. Indeed, the distinction between a “back up” and an archive is fuzzy and entirely dependent on the answers to the above questions.

 

In essence, I’m suggesting that those questions have to be answered the same way regardless of a file’s location. After all, Windows doesn’t care where your Documents folder is, so why should Carbonite? Your concerns are valid, but they are equally valid for internal drives. If you have folder X on an internal drive, you can swap files into and out of it. Of course, Carbonite will eventually delete files that aren’t in X presently so why should a USB drive be any different? A drive really is just a folder on steroids.

 

In my case, 250 GB would be plenty. Even 150 GB would be enough, if I can pick the files. But, why should anyone tell me what I can safe-guard? I suppose that’s an argument for tiering. You see, once you get past exceptions like Leo who are drowning in bandwidth, you see a much drier landscape. We have bandwidth, but nowhere near what the San Francisco and New York pundits assume is the norm. Those people who think it’s time for IPTV are in for a wait. Most of America is a good piece below the cloud so ubiquitous real-time cloud-based services are a pipe-dream for us (literally), and will be for the near future. If Carbonite wishes to be relevant in more than a few places, I think you must shift to an archival model because average users simply don’t have the bandwidth to make “cloud” back ups worthwhile. Restoring any large amount of data would be painful.

 

Scott

 

 

Hi, guys.   There’s a technical issue and a commercial issue.  Leo is exactly right about the $5/mo.   We already lose money on a small percentage of our users, and that’s the price we pay in order to make it really easy for everyone.  However, we don’t want to make the economics any worse than necessary or we’d have to raise prices for everyone.  A small number of users already use a highly disproportionate amount of our storage.   The alternative would be to charge by the gigabyte like most of our competitors do, or simply shut off your backup without notice if you get too big, as one of our “unlimited” competitors does.  There’s no free lunch, and none of us can afford to back up more than about 150GBs without losing money at $5/mo.   In a few months we will have a new product on the market that will backup USB external drives, NAS, and any other lettered drives.  But pricing will be tiered by the GB, not unlimited.  I’m sure people will buy one license and back up all their PCs, and that’s fine. 

 

Regarding USB drives, here’s why we don’t back them up today:  What should we do when the drive is unplugged?  Do we assume that the data is deleted and so delete the backup?  If not, then we are essentially archiving the data, not backing it up.  If we don’t delete data when you unplug the drive, someone could fill up an external drive, load it up to Carbonite, erase the drive and fill it up with other data, and repeat.   This is not what we’re getting paid to do and it wouldn’t make any economic sense at all.   If we’re charging you by the GB, then of course we’re happy to archive as well as back up. 

 

Hope that answers the question.  

 

Dave

 

David Friend | Chairman & CEO
Carbonite, Inc. | 177 Huntington Ave., 15th Floor | Boston, MA | 02115
Office: 617-587-1110 | Fax: 617-587-1101
www.carbonite.com  

 

No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 8.5.409 / Virus Database: 270.14.1/2407 - Release Date: 10/01/09 18:23:00

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David,

 

I suppose everyone has their own definition of what’s “economical.” I’m on very limited funds, and even I think your $50/yr. subscription price is obscenely low. I understand that you’re trying to attract customers, but there’s a price-point where you start attracting people who are unlikely to stay for a variety of reasons. I think you’re well below that. I would support both $100/yr. for 300 GB, and then additional tiers.

 

If I may switch topics slightly, there are some changes to your client that would really help laptop users. Most important would be the awareness of the type of internet connection. I’m typing this email on the road to a meeting, and I darn sure wouldn’t like Carbonite backing up stuff on EVDO unless I explicitly order it to. True, Carbonite can be disabled, but it’s actually designed to be forgotten.

 

Meanwhile, I really need to back up that USB drive. Can you offer any ETA on your new product?

 

Scott

 

 

Scott:  The policy is 60 days.   If you delete a file on your PC, we delete it 60 days later.  That gives you plenty of time to change your mind or download the file to another PC using Remote File Access.  If your whole computer is disconnected from Carbonite, i.e., there is no explicit Windows file deletion, we store the files for as long as your subscription lasts. 

 

You’re correct that we should be moving to an archival model, and that is indeed on the roadmap.   However, it just doesn’t work economically with an “unlimited” pricing plan.  Just like any all-you-can-eat plan, your economics are based on averages – you’re always going to lose money on a small percentage of users.  In the case of archiving, large users would so skew the formula that everyone would have to be charged substantially more money, and we would no longer be competitive with vendors who offer tiered pricing.  All the giant users would migrate to us, and the bulk of the average users would migrate to a competitor. 

Dave

 

 

 

David,

 

I am amused to think of Leo paying for the terabytes he backs up! However, your response raises a very interesting and important issue. You say that you’re currently only in the “back up” business, meaning that Carbonite mirrors protected files on internal permanent drives. Very well, but what happens when a file is deleted locally? How long does it take for your client to report the deletion, and then, for your servers to delete the backup? The various comments from Leo in his multitude of podcasts suggest that he uses Carbonite as short-term archiving. Indeed, the distinction between a “back up” and an archive is fuzzy and entirely dependent on the answers to the above questions.

 

In essence, I’m suggesting that those questions have to be answered the same way regardless of a file’s location. After all, Windows doesn’t care where your Documents folder is, so why should Carbonite? Your concerns are valid, but they are equally valid for internal drives. If you have folder X on an internal drive, you can swap files into and out of it. Of course, Carbonite will eventually delete files that aren’t in X presently so why should a USB drive be any different? A drive really is just a folder on steroids.

 

In my case, 250 GB would be plenty. Even 150 GB would be enough, if I can pick the files. But, why should anyone tell me what I can safe-guard? I suppose that’s an argument for tiering. You see, once you get past exceptions like Leo who are drowning in bandwidth, you see a much drier landscape. We have bandwidth, but nowhere near what the San Francisco and New York pundits assume is the norm. Those people who think it’s time for IPTV are in for a wait. Most of America is a good piece below the cloud so ubiquitous real-time cloud-based services are a pipe-dream for us (literally), and will be for the near future. If Carbonite wishes to be relevant in more than a few places, I think you must shift to an archival model because average users simply don’t have the bandwidth to make “cloud” back ups worthwhile. Restoring any large amount of data would be painful.

 

Scott

 

 

Hi, guys.   There’s a technical issue and a commercial issue.  Leo is exactly right about the $5/mo.   We already lose money on a small percentage of our users, and that’s the price we pay in order to make it really easy for everyone.  However, we don’t want to make the economics any worse than necessary or we’d have to raise prices for everyone.  A small number of users already use a highly disproportionate amount of our storage.   The alternative would be to charge by the gigabyte like most of our competitors do, or simply shut off your backup without notice if you get too big, as one of our “unlimited” competitors does.  There’s no free lunch, and none of us can afford to back up more than about 150GBs without losing money at $5/mo.   In a few months we will have a new product on the market that will backup USB external drives, NAS, and any other lettered drives.  But pricing will be tiered by the GB, not unlimited.  I’m sure people will buy one license and back up all their PCs, and that’s fine. 

 

Regarding USB drives, here’s why we don’t back them up today:  What should we do when the drive is unplugged?  Do we assume that the data is deleted and so delete the backup?  If not, then we are essentially archiving the data, not backing it up.  If we don’t delete data when you unplug the drive, someone could fill up an external drive, load it up to Carbonite, erase the drive and fill it up with other data, and repeat.   This is not what we’re getting paid to do and it wouldn’t make any economic sense at all.   If we’re charging you by the GB, then of course we’re happy to archive as well as back up. 

 

Hope that answers the question.  

 

Dave

 

David Friend | Chairman & CEO
Carbonite, Inc. | 177 Huntington Ave., 15th Floor | Boston, MA | 02115
Office: 617-587-1110 | Fax: 617-587-1101
www.carbonite.com  

 

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David,

 

I am amused to think of Leo paying for the terabytes he backs up! However, your response raises a very interesting and important issue. You say that you’re currently only in the “back up” business, meaning that Carbonite mirrors protected files on internal permanent drives. Very well, but what happens when a file is deleted locally? How long does it take for your client to report the deletion, and then, for your servers to delete the backup? The various comments from Leo in his multitude of podcasts suggest that he uses Carbonite as short-term archiving. Indeed, the distinction between a “back up” and an archive is fuzzy and entirely dependent on the answers to the above questions.

 

In essence, I’m suggesting that those questions have to be answered the same way regardless of a file’s location. After all, Windows doesn’t care where your Documents folder is, so why should Carbonite? Your concerns are valid, but they are equally valid for internal drives. If you have folder X on an internal drive, you can swap files into and out of it. Of course, Carbonite will eventually delete files that aren’t in X presently so why should a USB drive be any different? A drive really is just a folder on steroids.

 

In my case, 250 GB would be plenty. Even 150 GB would be enough, if I can pick the files. But, why should anyone tell me what I can safe-guard? I suppose that’s an argument for tiering. You see, once you get past exceptions like Leo who are drowning in bandwidth, you see a much drier landscape. We have bandwidth, but nowhere near what the San Francisco and New York pundits assume is the norm. Those people who think it’s time for IPTV are in for a wait. Most of America is a good piece below the cloud so ubiquitous real-time cloud-based services are a pipe-dream for us (literally), and will be for the near future. If Carbonite wishes to be relevant in more than a few places, I think you must shift to an archival model because average users simply don’t have the bandwidth to make “cloud” back ups worthwhile. Restoring any large amount of data would be painful.

 

Scott

 

 

Hi, guys.   There’s a technical issue and a commercial issue.  Leo is exactly right about the $5/mo.   We already lose money on a small percentage of our users, and that’s the price we pay in order to make it really easy for everyone.  However, we don’t want to make the economics any worse than necessary or we’d have to raise prices for everyone.  A small number of users already use a highly disproportionate amount of our storage.   The alternative would be to charge by the gigabyte like most of our competitors do, or simply shut off your backup without notice if you get too big, as one of our “unlimited” competitors does.  There’s no free lunch, and none of us can afford to back up more than about 150GBs without losing money at $5/mo.   In a few months we will have a new product on the market that will backup USB external drives, NAS, and any other lettered drives.  But pricing will be tiered by the GB, not unlimited.  I’m sure people will buy one license and back up all their PCs, and that’s fine. 

 

Regarding USB drives, here’s why we don’t back them up today:  What should we do when the drive is unplugged?  Do we assume that the data is deleted and so delete the backup?  If not, then we are essentially archiving the data, not backing it up.  If we don’t delete data when you unplug the drive, someone could fill up an external drive, load it up to Carbonite, erase the drive and fill it up with other data, and repeat.   This is not what we’re getting paid to do and it wouldn’t make any economic sense at all.   If we’re charging you by the GB, then of course we’re happy to archive as well as back up. 

 

Hope that answers the question.  

 

Dave

 

David Friend | Chairman & CEO
Carbonite, Inc. | 177 Huntington Ave., 15th Floor | Boston, MA | 02115
Office: 617-587-1110 | Fax: 617-587-1101
www.carbonite.com