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Company Spotlight NovaStor
NovaStor entered the data protection market in 1987, with their local DOS backup solutions. Today, with about 1,000 reseller partners and a user base of more than 2 million, they’re one of the largest developers of online backup products, installed on millions of computers and servers across the globe.
Mike Andrews, NovaStor’s Managing Director and Vice President of Sales Worldwide, spoke to Online Backup Reviews, and let us in on the company’s vision and his forecast for the future. Andrews has spent 10 years promoting online backup for NovaStor, and believes their experience and wisdom gives them a unique position within the industry.
“We’ve seen failures in launches but we’ve also gone through some of the best successes in the industry, so we know where the mistakes are,” Andrews said. “As a pioneer in this industry, we have educated a large portion of the market… and we’ve opened a lot of eyes in offsite backup.”
NovaStor came up with the first ever Windows based online backup solution, and spent many years breaking new ground in the field. Ten years ago NovaStor acquired the assets of a company called Hotwire, which greatly enhanced their online backup capabilities.
It was also around that time they introduced their Value-Pak which, to this day, is their most popular among business customers. Launched almost ten years ago, it comes with everything a service provider or corporate customer needs to provide their own backup service, including a server license, client licenses, re-branding capabilities, annual support and customer account creation. Andrews says several of their competitors have copied the concept over the years, recognizing it as a successful way of providing an all-in-one offering.
In December 2005, a Swiss Company, known then as Mount10 AG, acquired NovaStor. The merger doubled their revenue, Andrews said, and brought high end, enterprise level backup abilities to the table. Their product line complemented NovaStor’s lower end technology, giving rise to one of the most extensive online backup portfolios around. “Their needs complimented ours and now we have a full range of products, from the desktop right through to the highest level enterprise solution,” Andrews said.
Although their solutions cater to any online backup need – including the personal user – NovaStor focuses more on the requirements of small businesses. They distribute their software mostly to business service providers and resellers, giving them the tools they need to supply online backup to others. In fact, 80% of their clients are service providers, while the other 20% are corporate clients, who purchase NovaStor’s hosted online backup services. Among those are the prosumers – professional, tech savvy consumers – who are embracing online backup more and more. Andrews says prosumers favor NovaStor’s base package, because it’s fast and simple, and allows them to tinker beyond base functionality.
NovaStor will, however, continue to target the needs of the small business sector in particular, which is growing fast. Andrews says many small businesses face huge backup requirements these days, similar to larger enterprises, but without the big budgets. NovaStor’s cost effective solution, aimed at this smaller business sector, includes built in support for SQL, Exchange and many other open files. It puts NovaStor in a favourable position among small businesses – one it hope to capitalize on.
“We’re going to play down in this lower space (small business market)… hoping to become that 800 pound gorilla for data protection, because there isn’t any gorillas in that space yet,” Andrews said.
Small businesses are, after all, the ones taking notice and adopting online backup the most these days. Especially within the past two to three years, after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, combined with the growth of digital technology, businesses are beginning to truly understand the importance of backing up data offsite, he said.
On the personal-user side however, mass adoption of online backup is still a long way off. Something is still missing, Andrews explained, which will one day bridge the gap between the early adopters of today and the mass-market consumers of tomorrow.
“I’ve been doing this for 10 years and I’ve seen the early adoption of online backup. I think there’s a big wave of acceptance in small businesses and heading more into prosumers …” Andrews said. “But I still think there is a great divide between the early adopters and the mass market… which has not fully caught on yet.”
Still in its “embryonic stage”, mass-market adoption will only take place when backup becomes more automated and more “thoughtless” for consumers. Today’s online backup providers expect too much from the average consumers, “forcing the end user to see the world the way they see it,” he said. In the future, Andrews thinks data protection and storage will become even more invisible and synchronized, functioning as part of other applications, sensing changes in data and swinging into action without the user having to know.
NovaStor hopes to be at the forefront of this transition, and currently has a number of projects in motion reflecting their vision. Andrews says their mobile backup solution, currently in alpha, will enable mobile devices to be completely synchronized with other computers, and protect mobile data in exciting new ways. They also plan to release a number of innovative business backup solutions soon.
Mike Andrews, NovaStor’s Managing Director and Vice President of Sales Worldwide, spoke to Online Backup Reviews, and let us in on the company’s vision and his forecast for the future. Andrews has spent 10 years promoting online backup for NovaStor, and believes their experience and wisdom gives them a unique position within the industry.
“We’ve seen failures in launches but we’ve also gone through some of the best successes in the industry, so we know where the mistakes are,” Andrews said. “As a pioneer in this industry, we have educated a large portion of the market… and we’ve opened a lot of eyes in offsite backup.”
NovaStor came up with the first ever Windows based online backup solution, and spent many years breaking new ground in the field. Ten years ago NovaStor acquired the assets of a company called Hotwire, which greatly enhanced their online backup capabilities.
It was also around that time they introduced their Value-Pak which, to this day, is their most popular among business customers. Launched almost ten years ago, it comes with everything a service provider or corporate customer needs to provide their own backup service, including a server license, client licenses, re-branding capabilities, annual support and customer account creation. Andrews says several of their competitors have copied the concept over the years, recognizing it as a successful way of providing an all-in-one offering.
In December 2005, a Swiss Company, known then as Mount10 AG, acquired NovaStor. The merger doubled their revenue, Andrews said, and brought high end, enterprise level backup abilities to the table. Their product line complemented NovaStor’s lower end technology, giving rise to one of the most extensive online backup portfolios around. “Their needs complimented ours and now we have a full range of products, from the desktop right through to the highest level enterprise solution,” Andrews said.
Although their solutions cater to any online backup need – including the personal user – NovaStor focuses more on the requirements of small businesses. They distribute their software mostly to business service providers and resellers, giving them the tools they need to supply online backup to others. In fact, 80% of their clients are service providers, while the other 20% are corporate clients, who purchase NovaStor’s hosted online backup services. Among those are the prosumers – professional, tech savvy consumers – who are embracing online backup more and more. Andrews says prosumers favor NovaStor’s base package, because it’s fast and simple, and allows them to tinker beyond base functionality.
NovaStor will, however, continue to target the needs of the small business sector in particular, which is growing fast. Andrews says many small businesses face huge backup requirements these days, similar to larger enterprises, but without the big budgets. NovaStor’s cost effective solution, aimed at this smaller business sector, includes built in support for SQL, Exchange and many other open files. It puts NovaStor in a favourable position among small businesses – one it hope to capitalize on.
“We’re going to play down in this lower space (small business market)… hoping to become that 800 pound gorilla for data protection, because there isn’t any gorillas in that space yet,” Andrews said.
Small businesses are, after all, the ones taking notice and adopting online backup the most these days. Especially within the past two to three years, after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, combined with the growth of digital technology, businesses are beginning to truly understand the importance of backing up data offsite, he said.
On the personal-user side however, mass adoption of online backup is still a long way off. Something is still missing, Andrews explained, which will one day bridge the gap between the early adopters of today and the mass-market consumers of tomorrow.
“I’ve been doing this for 10 years and I’ve seen the early adoption of online backup. I think there’s a big wave of acceptance in small businesses and heading more into prosumers …” Andrews said. “But I still think there is a great divide between the early adopters and the mass market… which has not fully caught on yet.”
Still in its “embryonic stage”, mass-market adoption will only take place when backup becomes more automated and more “thoughtless” for consumers. Today’s online backup providers expect too much from the average consumers, “forcing the end user to see the world the way they see it,” he said. In the future, Andrews thinks data protection and storage will become even more invisible and synchronized, functioning as part of other applications, sensing changes in data and swinging into action without the user having to know.
NovaStor hopes to be at the forefront of this transition, and currently has a number of projects in motion reflecting their vision. Andrews says their mobile backup solution, currently in alpha, will enable mobile devices to be completely synchronized with other computers, and protect mobile data in exciting new ways. They also plan to release a number of innovative business backup solutions soon.
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