Back in May I wrote about the release of MozyHome for Mac, an Apple-compatible version of the Mozy online backup service that Berkeley Data Systems launched for Windows users in 2006. Between them, Mozy (which became part of Hopkinton, MA-based EMC last fall) and Boston-based Carbonite dominate the market for online backup—but for the moment, only Mozy’s system works with Macintosh computers, and the service has been so popular among Mac users that many Mac-based businesses have been using it, even though the MozyHome license agreement technically bars users from using it to back up business-related files.
Mozy COO Vance Checketts told me last spring that the company preferred to look the other way rather than turn business users away. But now that issue is moot: today Mozy will launch a public beta version of MozyPro for Mac, a business version of the backup service to parallel the original Windows version.
Like the home version, MozyPro for Mac copies sensitive data from the hard drives of Internet-connected computers to servers at Mozy’s remote data centers. But unlike the home version, it provides a Web-based administrative interface that allows IT managers to specify which content on each company computer should be backed up, and it can be used to back up servers as well as personal computers.
“There aren’t any other Mac backup solutions for businesses that come with an administrative interface,” Mozy spokesman Devin Knighton told me last week. “You can use Time Machine”—software introduced by Apple last year to allow Mac users to restore their computers to an earlier state—“but that only works for one or two people at a time.”
While individuals use online backup to protect against the computer theft or hard-drive crashes, businesses have even stronger reasons to subscribe to off-site backup services, Knighton argued, citing a study by the National Archives and Records Administration in Washington finding that 93 percent of companies that lose their data for 10 days or more file for bankruptcy within one year.
MozyPro’s pricing scheme works somewhat differently from the home service, which costs $4.95 per month for unlimited storage. The business version costs $3.95 per desktop or laptop per month plus $0.50 per gigabyte stored per month.
Carbonite, by contrast, charges a flat $49.95 per year for unlimited backups, and does not have separate home and business versions. Carbonite CEO David Friend says that a Mac version of Carbonite is in beta testing and is scheduled for general availability on December 15.
While Mozy’s Mac announcement is bound to get some media play this week, the EMC subsidiary may have a bit more catching up to do on the marketing side: Carbonite has been running an amusing promotion lately on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” the late-night ABC talk show (see the YouTube videos here and here).
