Comments on: Why EMC Bought Mozy: A Leading Exec Provides More Insight http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2007/10/17/why-emc-bought-mozy-a-leading-exec-provides-more-insight/ Business + Technology in the Exponential Economy Sat, 21 Nov 2009 22:30:41 -0600 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 hourly 1 By: Michael Fisher http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2007/10/17/why-emc-bought-mozy-a-leading-exec-provides-more-insight/comment-page-1/#comment-2005 Michael Fisher Thu, 18 Oct 2007 22:14:44 +0000 http://www.xconomy.com/2007/10/17/why-emc-bought-mozy-a-leading-exec-provides-more-insight/#comment-2005 Disclaimer: I work at ElephantDrive, which also provides online backup and storage services. I think EMC will have challenges re-positioning its brand as a consumer/SMB service, but adding a product like Mozy to their quiver is certainly a step in the right direction. The trends supporting adoption are quite clear. I think the interesting question is: why Mozy and not some other service? I think the answer lies not in their model, which has certainly proven very effective, but rather in their technology which was uniquely valuable to EMC. Mozy's CEO, Josh Coates, is a veteran of the enterprise storage space, and he's developed his own system for redundant block-level disk allocation based on Reed-Solomon encoding. This is really interesting technology, especially to a company like EMC. What's strange is that it is not really interesting in the context of online backup and storage - that is, it doesn't seem to provide any clear advantage to the service offering (other than at best a marginal contribution to capital outlays for disks). However, if you are in the business of selling managed arrays (as EMC is), this might prove very useful. Regardless, I believe that EMC has made a great decision and gotten a bargain. It remains to be seen whether other established technology players will look to make similar acquisitions, and how they will evaluate the remaining online backup and storage providers. ElephantDrive is focused on speed and performance, devoting efforts to improving the efficiency of transfer and leveraging a mix of storage-as-a-service and physical media. Other players are entering the space, but are finding out how challenging it can be to scale massively. We'll have to wait and see whether a handful can emerge as dominant, independent players in the space... Disclaimer: I work at ElephantDrive, which also provides online backup and storage services.

I think EMC will have challenges re-positioning its brand as a consumer/SMB service, but adding a product like Mozy to their quiver is certainly a step in the right direction. The trends supporting adoption are quite clear.

I think the interesting question is: why Mozy and not some other service?

I think the answer lies not in their model, which has certainly proven very effective, but rather in their technology which was uniquely valuable to EMC. Mozy’s CEO, Josh Coates, is a veteran of the enterprise storage space, and he’s developed his own system for redundant block-level disk allocation based on Reed-Solomon encoding. This is really interesting technology, especially to a company like EMC. What’s strange is that it is not really interesting in the context of online backup and storage – that is, it doesn’t seem to provide any clear advantage to the service offering (other than at best a marginal contribution to capital outlays for disks). However, if you are in the business of selling managed arrays (as EMC is), this might prove very useful.

Regardless, I believe that EMC has made a great decision and gotten a bargain. It remains to be seen whether other established technology players will look to make similar acquisitions, and how they will evaluate the remaining online backup and storage providers.

ElephantDrive is focused on speed and performance, devoting efforts to improving the efficiency of transfer and leveraging a mix of storage-as-a-service and physical media.

Other players are entering the space, but are finding out how challenging it can be to scale massively. We’ll have to wait and see whether a handful can emerge as dominant, independent players in the space…

]]> By: Mike http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2007/10/17/why-emc-bought-mozy-a-leading-exec-provides-more-insight/comment-page-1/#comment-1979 Mike Thu, 18 Oct 2007 02:00:05 +0000 http://www.xconomy.com/2007/10/17/why-emc-bought-mozy-a-leading-exec-provides-more-insight/#comment-1979 Hey Trip, "Does not a long-time competitor make," sounds like something Yoda would say. Certainly we aren't living in those times! Hey Trip,

“Does not a long-time competitor make,” sounds like something Yoda would say. Certainly we aren’t living in those times!

]]> By: Trip http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2007/10/17/why-emc-bought-mozy-a-leading-exec-provides-more-insight/comment-page-1/#comment-1975 Trip Wed, 17 Oct 2007 21:40:36 +0000 http://www.xconomy.com/2007/10/17/why-emc-bought-mozy-a-leading-exec-provides-more-insight/#comment-1975 Hi David, 1.5 years does not a long-time competitor make. But I think you are correct that online backup will ramp up (explode may be a bit of overstatement). Sagatious?? Sagacious?? *sigh* Hi David,

1.5 years does not a long-time competitor make. But I think you are correct that online backup will ramp up (explode may be a bit of overstatement).

Sagatious?? Sagacious??

*sigh*

]]> By: David Friend http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2007/10/17/why-emc-bought-mozy-a-leading-exec-provides-more-insight/comment-page-1/#comment-1972 David Friend Wed, 17 Oct 2007 19:54:28 +0000 http://www.xconomy.com/2007/10/17/why-emc-bought-mozy-a-leading-exec-provides-more-insight/#comment-1972 I'm the CEO of Carbonite, Mozy's long-time competitor. I think EMC made a very smart move acquiring Mozy. It's a good product. More importantly, the timing may turn out to be perfect. Online backup is just starting to explode. People are starting to realize that losing a hard drive is a much bigger threat to your data today than viruses. In a few years, there could be a hundred million users backing up their PCs over the Internet. If that's the case, the top three or four companies in the field will be comparable in size to the top anti-virus companies and the $76 million will look like a very sagatious decision. David Friend, CEO Carbonite, Inc. <a href="http://www.carbonite.com" rel="nofollow"> Carbonite Online Backup </a> I’m the CEO of Carbonite, Mozy’s long-time competitor. I think EMC made a very smart move acquiring Mozy. It’s a good product. More importantly, the timing may turn out to be perfect. Online backup is just starting to explode. People are starting to realize that losing a hard drive is a much bigger threat to your data today than viruses. In a few years, there could be a hundred million users backing up their PCs over the Internet. If that’s the case, the top three or four companies in the field will be comparable in size to the top anti-virus companies and the $76 million will look like a very sagatious decision.

David Friend, CEO
Carbonite, Inc.
Carbonite Online Backup

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