Vodafone is launching a cloud-based service designed for business people and consumers who are looking for a way to back up the data on their desktops, laptops and netbooks. The move is significant as Vodafone is making another move beyond the mobile market and is using cloud-based services to get there.
Vodafone’s service is built upon Decho’s Mozy platform, the popular backup service, which consistently receives ringing endorsements. Mozy has been on a tear as of late, closing deals with China Telecomm and McAfee.
Vodafone will initially offer the service to its European customers. But considering that Vofafone does own 45% of Verizon, it would make sense that the service could roll out to the US market. The company has a presence in 70 countries.
The service is designed primarily for small businesses, though it is being used currently by large companies like General Electric, said Charles Fitzgerald, VP of Product Management for Decho.
“We have two offerings today, one aimed at consumers (MozyHome) and one aimed at small businesses (MozyPro),” Fitzgerald said. “The business customers for Mozy today range from mom and pop shops to multinationals like GE, but the sweet spot is definitely small business.”
Businesses will have administrative control capabilities in order to manage multiple users.
With the service, Vodafone is finding its way into the lucrative market that is coming with the massive wave of media that people are producing and storing on their computers. Netbooks have grown tremendously in popularity but have limited storage capability. People are connected to any number of devices. They face threats from malware and viruses. Vodafone is banking on that combination of factors giving it an edge with the business customer who is looking for a one-stop shop to access, organize, protect and share their media.
The announcement comes on the heels of 1 million Sidekick customers losing their personal data. Fitzgerald says the Mozy service provides customers with one more backup.
The Sidekick fiasco underscores how critical backup is and the importance of protecting your own data,” Fitzgerald said. “Vodafone PC backup (and any online backup) gives user another, redundant way to protect their data. Unlike the SideKick model, where there is only one copy of the data, there is redundancy across the primary PC and the online service, and we encourage customers to also have a local backup.”
