CeBIT 2008: Aussie distie demos online backup service

In an interview with CRN, Avalanche’s managing director Peter Cameron said it has picked up the exclusive Australian distribution rights for US-owned Carbonite’s Online PCBackup product and has also set up a separate distribution company – Carbonite Australia – to look after the distribution of the product.

“The company will be staffed by different people, but will be run from the same building as Avalanche’s other distribution company – AVG distribution. We are currently waiting for Arthur Koulianos, Carbonite’s newly appointed product market manager, to come onboard at the end of this month," said Cameron.

According to Cameron Carbonite Online PCBackup is an affordable backup service aimed at the Small Office/Home Office (SOHO) environment. “Storage capacity is unlimited and it’s easy to recover your files if anything ever happens to the computer,” he said.

The latest version of Carbonite also includes a wizard to help users migrate files from an older computer to a new system. The wizard simplifies the process of uploading files onto the new machine, easing even complex restores such as uploading files from the Windows XP file structure onto the radically different Windows Vista operating system, claimed Cameron.

“We started to talk to Carbonite, in the US, about the online back-up product around 12 months ago and the more we looked at the product the more we liked how it fit in nicely with the rest of our business," he said. "Each user has an encryption key, which is dynamically generated by the software. All the data is stored at a data centre in the US - which is by big-named US-based IT companies and banks - and features fully redundant powers."

Cameron said the company has already had a number of reseller enquiries about the product. However, Carbonite Australia wasn’t ready to go out and aggressively recruit resellers.

“We launched the product in March and we have already had 15 resellers and one computer franchise group - who we work closely with – express considerable interest in the product. At the moment we don’t have the facility to sign resellers on. We want resellers to be able to sign-up for the product online – similar to our AVG reseller program – however our Carbonite site isn’t even up because we are waiting for the US to change a few things,” he said.

According to Cameron, Carbonite Australia wants to fully understand the product range and what support it needs so it can eventually create a full partner program.

“Right now, Carbonite Australia wants to just take it slowly and put out a quality partner program – if any resellers at CeBIT are interested in the product, we will be happy to sign them on, but at this stage we aren’t going full tilt to recruit resellers,” he said.

Cameron is adamant the company will have a reseller program for the product in place by the second half of 2008. "With Carbonite Australia three-six months off before it’s officially launched to Australian resellers," he said.

Australian PC users can purchase a one year subscription to Carbonite Online PCBackup for $59.95 (including GST) or a two year subscription for $109.95 (including GST).

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