Symform, a provider that takes a unique “share and share-alike” approach to SMB-focused cloud storage, is doing something even more head-turning: it’s offering a flat fee for unlimited cloud storage depending on the size of the customer to be backed up. As a channel-only company, Symform is hoping it makes it easier and more profitable for its partners to make the sale. And Symform is hyping the idea that its flat pricing is more than 50 percent cheaper than its closest competitors.
MSPmentor covered Symform’s offering in depth back in November 2010, but here’s the quick version: Symform Cloud Control, hosted with the problem-stricken Amazon EC2 cloud, oversees the transfer of data from your site to a randomly chosen comrade in the Cooperative Storage Cloud. That data is chopped into bits and heavily encrypted so only you can retrieve it when needed.
And under its “traditional” pricing scheme, membership in the cooperative is based on how much you contribute; if you dedicate 2 TB of server space to Symform, then that’s how much you can store off-premises. The company says it’s designed to take advantage of idle or unused computing resources.
But under the new flat pricing plan, Symform wants $1,800 to back up 50 endpoints and two servers, with pricing scaling up from there. For comparison, it notes Mozy would charge $40,000 and Acronis would charge $3,500 for the same-sized deployment. Combined with the benefits of maximizing storage space, Symform is promoting it as a way to provide organizations with maximum flexibility.
Last time we heard from Symform, the company had 1,200 partners. Will flat pricing help propel that number higher?
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This is an interesting concept and I think we are heading to a point where cloud storage is basically free to the customer. Once we are there, the customer will buy a level of service, including things like how the initial data seed is performed, variable RPO/RTOs, DR/BC options and so on. There will be no charge for the storage its self. While Symform’s new pricing model is a step in this direction, the problem is that it simply moves the pricing metric from the TB to the number of users/servers rather than the service level the customer is receiving.
Mitchell Cipriano
Demand by Design
http://www.demandbydesign.com
Mitchell,
If we get to the model you’re describing, do you expect a shakeout in the cloud storage market?
-jp
Joe:
Yes, I do believe we will have a shakeout in the cloud storage market. First, are too many vendors in this space. Even looking on Symform’s price comparison, they list 10 vendors and I can easily come up with more. Beyond that, once the first vendor figures out how to deliver their services based on the model I described above, the others that are able will quickly develop similar offerings, those that cannot adapt quickly will be in trouble.
Mitchell Cipriano
Demand by Design
http://www.demandbydesign.com
I think there will continue to be consolidation in this space and more partners are looking to be able to leverage the cloud, rather than just store their clients data. As technology evolves, there is a great opportunity for partners to not only store data in the cloud, but more importantly, leverage that data in ways that they could only have done on-premise in the past.
Mitchell: Thanks for your thoughts on consolidation.
Eric: Earlier this week I heard from a business intelligence company that’s building out a cloud BI solution. To your point, BI customers will be able to store and retrieve and “leverage” the data from a range of third-party clouds, while analyzing the data in the SaaS BI system.
-jp