A Day in the Life of a Person with a Disability

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  

No virus found in this incoming message.
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Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
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Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
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No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 8.5.420 / Virus Database: 270.14.3/2409 - Release Date: 10/05/09 06:19:00

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  

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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  

I wonder if this can be parlayed into a MyFi.

There are few good companies left in the world, but here’s one. Their caca ain’t caca!

Terry,

Just wanted to let you know that power to my laptop has been restored. The problem was indeed the output cable. As I said, I’ve never had a Lind power supply actually fail, and I’ve used the 130-watt bricks for five years.

On a different subject, have you received any reports of the 130-watt supply generating any radio interference? I’m an Amateur Radio Operator, and my brick does tend to generate “hash” around 3 MHz.

Scott

Scott,

Out Darrel Pinkston has sent you today a replacement cable and I expect it to arrive to you on Tuesday.

I also noted that you also placed an order for an adapter and an additional cable. The adapter you placed order for is a 90 Watt timer adapter and not the 130 Watt adapter. I want to verify that this is what you want or if that is in error. Also, did you want to order the additional cable knowing that one is now en route to you. The order you placed will not ship today.

Please respond.

Thanks,  Terry


On 9/24/09 10:38 PM, "Scott Royall" <royall@conchbbs.com> wrote:

Terry,
 
I urgently need a replacement output power cord (to a Dell laptop that’s Series D-compatible) for my Lind Electronics 130-watt DC-to-DC brick. I think it’s under warranty, but whatever. I’m disabled, and the brick powers my laptop 24/7 so this is critical.
 
Scott Royall

David,

Carbonite is an interesting service/product, and Leo Laporte certainly gives you plenty of mileage for your advertizing dollar with his glowing endorsements. Unfortunately, neither Leo or your sign-up page happen to mention that Carbonite only works on internal drives. I just downloaded and installed it, and immediately encountered this issue.

I am disabled and am in a powered wheelchair. There are several computers in my life, but the most critical are laptops. Those are so critical to me that one always is mounted on my chair, with the others acting mainly as hot spares. The laptops are responsible for speaking for me, in addition to ALL the other things people do with laptops, finances, communication, entertainment, even (gasp!) games. As far as I am concerned, the first rule of laptops is that they NEVER have enough internal storage. This is why I also have two external USB hard-drives mounted on the chair. My music collection alone is over 100GB and resides on a hard-drive of its own. The very drive  that I needed Carbonite to back up!

Although I may be unique in some ways, the fact is that an increasing number of people are acquiring very large collections of pictures and music that necessitate dedicated hard-drives. Those drives have to be external in the world of laptops, and that extremely valuable data still must be protected. As an IT professional, I may be able to enlist the ways of NTFS to “trick” Carbonite but linking my Music folder as a sub-folder of another folder on the internal drive, but I doubt it. There must be a better way!

In fact, I have never bundled Xpress-It with any hardware so it technically qualifies under the Medicare regulation. AAC is all Xpress-It knows about. However, software requires hardware, and that’s historically been the problem. Today, you can get a $300 netbook that will happily run Xpress-It. The average user might need external speakers, but that’s about it. Still, I simply don’t have the financial resources to put Xpress-It on Medicare’s radar. That process takes a willing doctor, a subject, and lawyers.

If you think other companies would line up to buy Xpress-It, remember the dedicated machine environment that’s in vogue. Also remember that they have products already to look after.

Xpress-It has been a good idea, but it presumes the buyer really wants the user to be able to do more than talk. I agree that’s a cynical description, but it’s also  darn accurate. The situation won’t change until someone the buyers have to listen to tells them that computers are all-around enablers. The more ways a person can use a computer, the less disabled he or she is.

No doubt I didn’t express myself clearly either.

In a dedicated environment, there are other products out now that can objectively argue to be as good as Xpress-It. I would counter that Xpress-It still maintains some minor advantages, but I would have to concede the point that I’m an one-man operation. That’s a real concern to large buyers. Even when we speak about the non-Medicare market, the fact is still that buyers use similar criteria of dedicated use to curb fraud. I’m not good enough as a programmer to surpass the decade of R&D other companies have spent to catch up. At present, I no longer have a clear advantage in a dedicated machine, because Xpress-It was always meant and designed to offer dedicated-machine performance on a general purpose system. It never was meant to beat that performance independently.

This may seem to be defeatism, but even the most tenacious fighter has to know the rules of the fight he’s in. I have always wondered why the AAC market wasn’t crowded with products like Xpress-It. It certainly isn’t magical, and mimicking its strengths wouldn’t be difficult. Well, I finally have an answer to why Xpress-It still stands alone. As the audio segment that started this discussion points out, Medicare has no problem paying $8,000 for a dedicated AAC device (probably a Dynavox), but will not buy a $2,000 general purpose computer. This despite the fact that the “patients” (a word I have come to loathe) in the two cases mentioned found even the rudimentary text-to-speech software that comes with a GPC to be more helpful than the $8,000 device! Is it any wonder why I get more conservative every second?

No, Medicare isn’t the only payer (yet), but who really thinks private insurance uses purchasing regulations that are more liberal than the government’s? Of course they don’t, because their job requires them to minimize the risk of fraud. If the government still only believes in dedicated devices, why should insurance companies stick their necks out? The audio mentions that at least one AAC company does sell a “dedicated device” through Medicare that end users can then pay the same company $50 to convert it back into a general purpose computer. I wonder how long it will be before Medicare declares that practice to be fraudulent!

To me, this Medicare purchasing regulation is only one brick in the Great Wall that largely separates the Disabled from society. Other “bricks” in that wall extend as far as our most basic instincts that govern who we associate with so I really cannot foresee the Disabled (and yes, I am over-generalizing) becoming a valued segment of society soon.

On the other matter, who do you think I know at Dell with that much clout? I haven’t heard from Michael Dell since about 1990! Besides, I haven’t done anything that recruiters have found interesting in almost eight years. I regret to say my working days are over.

Scott ..

  It didn't come through in the short time I had to write, and it's probably a lousy strategy to be expedient and not long-term focused however, if the dollars are with a dumb product then you can make your product the smartest of the dumb.  Somewhere in the future, you can make it behave like the well mannered, machine sharing, smart thing that it is.  Or, market two models: The dumb for purchase with Medicare dollars as an integrated machine hog and the smart for sale to people who have their own machine.
  If Medicare won't pay for it as it is and Medicare are the only dollars you can see out there, then the task is to either 1) change Medicare, 2) have Medicare buy only the software and whatever additional hardware (perhaps  none) that it needs to function in a 'real' environment (for e.g. your amplifier and speakers) that can't be used for something else, and let the patient use his own computer to run it, 3) find another market, or 4) be left out of the market. 
  I don't see No. 1 happening anytime soon as the potential for "fraud!!" and "abuse!!" and other political hacks will drown out whatever benefit the software brings if it runs on a computer that Medicare buys that can also be used for (bad example, but Maaaarvin Zindler guaranteed to play on the TV news) porno pictures.
  No. 2 opens your patient to having to buy a computer .. No easy task for a person / family struggling to pay bills associated with medical care of the patient needing it.
  No. 3 will take some imagination
  No. 4 is already happening.

  Let me switch subjects .. The news today has Dell buying Perot Systems, who, if memory serves me correctly after working around them for four years, make some 40% of their dollars in health care related consulting services.  I don't know if you can bend this onto your painter and pull, but if you have a way to be referred out of Dell to Perot and a product to bring with you, there might be some consulting opportunities.  Just a thought - though it was triggered by how well you know your stuff about Dell gear and your product.

djs

Scott Royall wrote:

The competitive advantage of Xpress-It is exactly that it is a good team player in a GP world.

No doubt I didn’t express myself clearly either.

In a dedicated environment, there are other products out now that can objectively argue to be as good as Xpress-It. I would counter that Xpress-It still maintains some minor advantages, but I would have to concede the point that I’m an one-man operation. That’s a real concern to large buyers. Even when we speak about the non-Medicare market, the fact is still that buyers use similar criteria of dedicated use to curb fraud. I’m not good enough as a programmer to surpass the decade of R&D other companies have spent to catch up. At present, I no longer have a clear advantage in a dedicated machine, because Xpress-It was always meant and designed to offer dedicated-machine performance on a general purpose system. It never was meant to beat that performance independently.

This may seem to be defeatism, but even the most tenacious fighter has to know the rules of the fight he’s in. I have always wondered why the AAC market wasn’t crowded with products like Xpress-It. It certainly isn’t magical, and mimicking its strengths wouldn’t be difficult. Well, I finally have an answer to why Xpress-It still stands alone. As the audio segment that started this discussion points out, Medicare has no problem paying $8,000 for a dedicated AAC device (probably a Dynavox), but will not buy a $2,000 general purpose computer. This despite the fact that the “patients” (a word I have come to loathe) in the two cases mentioned found even the rudimentary text-to-speech software that comes with a GPC to be more helpful than the $8,000 device! Is it any wonder why I get more conservative every second?

No, Medicare isn’t the only payer (yet), but who really thinks private insurance uses purchasing regulations that are more liberal than the government’s? Of course they don’t, because their job requires them to minimize the risk of fraud. If the government still only believes in dedicated devices, why should insurance companies stick their necks out? The audio mentions that at least one AAC company does sell a “dedicated device” through Medicare that end users can then pay the same company $50 to convert it back into a general purpose computer. I wonder how long it will be before Medicare declares that practice to be fraudulent!

To me, this Medicare purchasing regulation is only one brick in the Great Wall that largely separates the Disabled from society. Other “bricks” in that wall extend as far as our most basic instincts that govern who we associate with so I really cannot foresee the Disabled (and yes, I am over-generalizing) becoming a valued segment of society soon.

On the other matter, who do you think I know at Dell with that much clout? I haven’t heard from Michael Dell since about 1990! Besides, I haven’t done anything that recruiters have found interesting in almost eight years. I regret to say my working days are over.

Scott ..

  It didn't come through in the short time I had to write, and it's probably a lousy strategy to be expedient and not long-term focused however, if the dollars are with a dumb product then you can make your product the smartest of the dumb.  Somewhere in the future, you can make it behave like the well mannered, machine sharing, smart thing that it is.  Or, market two models: The dumb for purchase with Medicare dollars as an integrated machine hog and the smart for sale to people who have their own machine.
  If Medicare won't pay for it as it is and Medicare are the only dollars you can see out there, then the task is to either 1) change Medicare, 2) have Medicare buy only the software and whatever additional hardware (perhaps  none) that it needs to function in a 'real' environment (for e.g. your amplifier and speakers) that can't be used for something else, and let the patient use his own computer to run it, 3) find another market, or 4) be left out of the market. 
  I don't see No. 1 happening anytime soon as the potential for "fraud!!" and "abuse!!" and other political hacks will drown out whatever benefit the software brings if it runs on a computer that Medicare buys that can also be used for (bad example, but Maaaarvin Zindler guaranteed to play on the TV news) porno pictures.
  No. 2 opens your patient to having to buy a computer .. No easy task for a person / family struggling to pay bills associated with medical care of the patient needing it.
  No. 3 will take some imagination
  No. 4 is already happening.

  Let me switch subjects .. The news today has Dell buying Perot Systems, who, if memory serves me correctly after working around them for four years, make some 40% of their dollars in health care related consulting services.  I don't know if you can bend this onto your painter and pull, but if you have a way to be referred out of Dell to Perot and a product to bring with you, there might be some consulting opportunities.  Just a thought - though it was triggered by how well you know your stuff about Dell gear and your product.

djs

Scott Royall wrote:

The competitive advantage of Xpress-It is exactly that it is a good team player in a GP world.

The case in question is exactly that, a GPC had to be disabled to be accepted. Of course doing that would defeat the purpose of Xpress-It, which is to function AS PART OF GPC USE. That’s its main advantage over the competition.

Scott ..

  I'd ask for a better interpretation before I jumped to the conclusion that a GPC can't be used.  If it's clear that it can't, then maybe you could test the theory by adapting the product to preclude use of the GPC for anything else, i.e. loaded on a dedicated processor.
  Kind of destroys the house to keep the fireplace burning, but if that's the only reg in your way ...

djs


Scott Royall wrote:

http://thisweekintech.com/213. Listen to the story about 40 minutes in, and everything becomes clear. No wonder why I couldn’t get any traction with Xpress-It. Medicare regulation prohibits paying for a device that may be beneficial to the person in a way outside of the disability. In other words, Medicare won’t pay for anything on a general purpose computer!

  OH  MY  GOD!

http://thisweekintech.com/213. Listen to the story about 40 minutes in, and everything becomes clear. No wonder why I couldn’t get any traction with Xpress-It. Medicare regulation prohibits paying for a device that may be beneficial to the person in a way outside of the disability. In other words, Medicare won’t pay for anything on a general purpose computer!

 OH  MY  GOD!

http://forums.electronicarts.co.uk/bp-technical-support/392302-burnout-paradise-pc-problem.html#post11333342

Brad,

It is good to hear from you too. Too bad it is under these circumstances. Now that I think of it, I’ve recently had three bad experiences at that store, since I also had to replace my own long-suffering Razr. Unfortunately, all three experiences have been resolved as much as they are going to be. The agent filed an insurance claim for the caregiver’s damaged phone on Friday, and the replacement should be here today. That in itself seemed odd since I’ve always heard that phone insurance was only for if the phone was lost or stolen. In any case, the agent still hit me with the $50 deductible even though the phone was four days old.

The issue with the new laptop was also weird. Like you, I have migrated to the government/business sector at least when shopping for laptops because the build quality is higher than the consumer lines. What I have now is an E6500, one of the black little tanks that Dell puts out for business and government use. My E6500 has a Gobi card and no PCI Express slots. As you likely know, Gobi is an internal cellular modem that will supposedly talk to any carrier on the planet. EVDO, HSDPA, CDMA, GSM, tin-can, Gobi simply doesn’t care. Of course, on CDMA/EVDO systems like Verizon, a phone number (281-723-6283) is linked to a device by its electronic serial number. The catch is that a Gobi doesn’t have an ESN even in EVDO/CDMA mode. What it has is a fifteen digit hexadecimal “MEID”  which apparently includes the ESN somewhere within it. The franchise agent was baffled by Gobi, and I admit it still mystifies me a bit because I still don’t have the ESN. After first trying to tell me that a) my laptop didn’t have a radio, and then b) Verizon didn’t support Gobi, the agent (with heated prompting) did spend two hours on the phone with Verizon and Dell trying to activate the card. We never did really figure things out; the card just miraculously started working. That means I still need to know what ESN the Gobi is using so I can reactivate it by myself when needed. I run a small fleet of laptops (mainly to insure I always have one that works), and, when I have to swap laptops, I also have to swap the registered ESN. If possible, would you please tell me the ESN the above phone number is currently linked to? That will identify the Gobi.

Getting back to the broader issue, I think some franchises like the Highway 6 store are somewhat deceptive. They admit to being an “indirect” store if asked, but the layout of the place very much leads customers to the conclusion that they are dealing directly with Verizon. The store really pushes the idea that there is no difference, but, as you confirm, there are some quite significant differences.

Scott

    So good to hear from you again.  I am not happy it has to be in these circumstances.  I will always be glad to help you anyway I can.

Please provide me with the phone number that needs to be replaced.  Also I what is not connecting with your laptop.  The software or the connection to our network?

As far as franchise go, you are correct in all the reasons stated to have an authorized dealer out there.  They way I understand the payout to them is based on numbers they bring in.  They should have a very high interest in relationship building.  However we have to entrust them to run there business that way.

We have an entire department here dedicated to the agents, I you have any issues with an agent I would always direct my customers to them. 

There are certain things the agents cannot do.  They are unable to warranty phones out.  They do not have customer service reps or technicians on hand to troubleshoot devices.  That is reserved to the corporate locations.  The closest corporate location to West Oaks is at Kirkwood and Westheimer.  I completely understand the fact that all the signage make the customer feel as though they are at a direct Verizon store.  The company hopes that a customer would get the same service no matter where they buy the Verizon Wireless devices.  Also when these agents have this signage, it signifies that they only sell Verizon and they have proven themselves to be a "premier agent".  I am not happy to hear that you did not have a good experience.  I would suggest contacting me or a corporate store going forward.  

Shame on me for not giving you the heads up that things had changes there.  I will be glad to see what I can do for you.  Just email me the numbers and issues with the devices and I will see what can be done.  

I hope everything is well with you, and thank you for still thinking of me.

Brad Stinson
VerizonWireless
Government Account Executive
Mobile: (713) 202-0907
Office: (713) 219-8572
Fax: (713) 219-8807
EMAIL: Brad.Stinson@VerizonWireless.com  

From: Scott Royall [mailto:royall@conchbbs.com]
Sent: Saturday, September 19, 2009 4:50 PM
To: Stinson, Brad
Subject: Verizon's Customer Support

Brad,

Ok, I’m curious. What’s the general business relationship between Verizon and the franchise dealers such as the company that bought your old Highway 6 store? I ask because I’ve had a couple of rather negative experiences there that cause me to question the underlying wisdom of franchise dealerships in the cellular industry.

Yes, I understand that franchises allow a carrier to provide a market presence at lower cost. You don’t have to financially support a franchise store. That’s obvious, but how much thought has gone toward the question of whether or not a franchised experience enhances or degrades the carrier’s relationship with the customer/subscriber over time? Let’s be honest, the primary source of income for a carrier like Verizon Wireless is the subscriptions, and it’s in your own best interest to do things to make the subscriber inclined to continue the relationship. On the other paw, a franchise is likely compensated by Verizon on a per-transaction basis so the dealer has no direct interest in supporting the long-term relationship between carrier and subscriber. This arrangement seems inherently in conflict to me.

I know you’ve moved over to the business side of Verizon. With four lines now, I certainly feel like a small business or at least a non-profit! My monthly subscription fees are  certainly non-trivial! When I need to connect a new laptop to Verizon’s network, or replace a caregiver’s phone that was accidentally broken, I don’t need a franchise dealer telling me, “uh, we don’t sell that laptop,” or, “we have to charge to replace the phone.” My view is that, if you put “Verizon Wireless” across your storefront in huge letters, you need to actively support whatever Verizon Wireless does.

Now, what can we do about this mess? Anything?

Scott

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It’s a shame too, because the E6500 is otherwise every bit as powerful as my XPS critters.

The unit does have 3D game capability, but in no way the power of an XPS unit.  The E6500 is reliable business machine.  I regret that the graphics aren’t as good as the other systems.

Well, it’s official. The E6500 will run Burnout Paradise—on the lowest visual settings. Sigh. This laptop seems very well built, and I’m starting to adore it. It appears to have excellent potential to live up to Lilly’s reliability. HOWEVER, the graphics are the pits. The next revision needs to at least have a Roddy-class graphics card. This thing certainly has the cooling for it.