‘In the future, there’ll be no money … only data’: Page 2 of 2

Rethinking cloud biz models

‘In the future, there’ll be no money … only data’: Page 2 of 2

A unique feature of Acronis’ new offering is its pricing model, which Oldenbeuving (pic above) tells DNA was initially developed during his time with his old company – IASO Backup International – when he and a team in Beijing set out to craft a business model that “would truly benefit from the cloud.”
 
The actual product is really only the second layer, he says, with the first layer being about the business that uses the product – if you cannot help the business grow, then it would have no incentive to use your products, he argues.
 
“The funny thing is that the cloud is technology innovation, but it does have to be completed with commercial innovation so that it can be made into a really successful business model,” he adds.
 
When asked how the pricing structure works, Oldenbeuving says the cloud backup solution can be broken down to three components: The backup software, the multi-tenanted environment, and storage.
 
If a partner decides to buy the complete solution, the cost would be approximately US$0.30 per gigabyte per month. Without the storage component, the price would be US$0.18 per gigabyte per month, and includes usage of the management portal, administrative benefits and backup software deployment.
 
Customers can also leverage on a range of discount Acronis will offer, such as a 40% discount on workstations, as well as discount mechanisms which would kick in should a customer sign up a large end-user consumer or large partner customer.
 
“Service providers would then benefit from both discounts if they sign up as a larger partner selling to an even larger end-customer base. If they hit all the discounts, the price could technically drop to as low as 8 cents,” he says, adding that the pricing calculations are quite complex on the backend depending on partner size and volume.
 
‘In the future, there’ll be no money … only data’: Page 2 of 2Oldenbeuving also cautions that prices for the Asian market may be higher as connectivity costs are typically four to five times higher compared with North America or Europe.
 
When asked for her impressions of Acronis’ offering, Treepti Jaswal (pic), industry analyst at Frost & Sullivan Asia Pacific overlooking Information & Communication Technologies, says that this is definitely a strong move by the company to simplify existing BaaS offerings.
 
“By addressing gaps neglected by competitors such as Symantec and Veeam, Acronis is well placed in this market. Image backup is a good alternative to traditional backup services that only back up files.
 
“Other interesting attributes are active restore, disaster recovery and bare metal recovery. It is also an added positive that customers are able to utilise their service provider's cloud or the Acronis private cloud,” she adds.
 
Treepti says that Acronis has a huge presence across the Asia Pacific region, especially in Japan where it is expected to open up a new data centre this year.
 
“Its BaaS offering has the potential to do well in South-East Asia, although it will definitely require a decent amount of localisation and/ or partnership with local providers to pacify cautious customers,” she says.
 
Meanwhile, Acronis’ Oldenbeuving says that previously, the transactions that partners had with every end-customer involved Acronis fulfilling the deals these partners made, which was an inefficient model.
 
“With this new offering, because the price mechanisms are built into the solution, these deals can be made without the interference of Acronis, letting the service provider and customer do it on their own,” he adds.
 
Oldenbeuving also says that a “funny change” happens with a shift in the business model, where previously if a customer bought a licence from Acronis, it was not directly the company’s problem if it was utilised or not.
 
With the new model, if the customer is not using the product, it doesn’t have to pay for it – with that, Acronis has to care about users more, making meeting customer needs that much more important, he adds.
 
The beta version of has now been launched, with the first general release slated for March. The hybrid offering, which offers customers the option to use their preferred storage, is expected to be rolled out in April with the service provider hosted edition to be released in May.
 
There are also plans to launch a disaster-as-a-recovery service, leveraging on Acronis’ strength in universal data restoration, which is currently being developed, with tentative plans for a mid-2015 launch.
 
For more information, click here.
 
Gabey Goh reporting from the Parallels Summit in New Orleans at the invitation of Parallels Inc.
 
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