In case anyone thinks there’s enough if a gap in the market with SMEs post Dell and EMC re-arranging the furniture this looks like a promising growth stock with a reasonable PEG.
http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/08/26/7-reasons-i-bought-…
Ant
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Hi Ant, It’s an interesting article on Carbonite, but I’m not sure whether one would be buying it just because of its acquisition, which will boost revenue markedly for one year. What sets it apart really, and would make you want to invest in it except as a short term (six month) stock? I wish I knew more about the field, but I don’t.
Thanks for posting the idea, at any rate.
Saul
If it does not play in the cloud, I don’t want to invest in it.
Six months ago I had desktops and servers that needed back ups. Then the server, despite have 4 RAIDS in it kept crashing. Enough was enough. I went cloud.
With Dropbox all my files are backed up and yet also local. I’ve moved to industry soecific cloud versions of the software. I now have absolutely no need to back anything up. It is all backed up for me. At most, if my laptop/desktops crashed, I’d have a few hundred bucks per to re-buy software. And even there I could, for example, just decide to go Office 365.
The cloud is changing the computer world as Bill Gates feared it would. To the point that I run Windows 10 and Mac OS utterly interchangeably, and have absolutely no need to back up anything anymore. This is of course Carbonite’s business. A business that just 6 months ago, that was business critical just one day before that, I no longer need at all. And I have utterly critical data that absolutely cannot be lost or stolen.
For whatever that is worth to data storage paradigm.
Tinker.
7 Likes
Hi Saul - my thesis to this would be the sentiment echoed in the subsequent posts in terms of the growth in data storage and the need for back up and in the importance of the cloud. I would want to be buying this for organic rather than one time acquired growth. I do though think it was a genius acquisition at an amazing price.
Ant
and I have absolutely no need to back up anything anymore. This is of course Carbonite’s business. A business that just 6 months ago, that was business critical just one day before that, I no longer need at all.
Tinker or Ant,
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Are you saying here that a business like Carbonite’s is now obsolete? or that it is crucial to you?
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Could one of you tech guys explain to a non-techie like me exactly what Carbonite does? And how it is different from what Amazon does? And if it isn’t much different, why would someone use a little company like Carbonite instead of Amazon?
Thanks
Saul
1 Like
Hi Saul - I was of the view that Carbonite’s cloud back up is the critical future and my read of Tinker’s post (and without wanting to speak for him) was corroborating that in a way. I see Carbonite as a cloud play - although I guess there’s a difference between cloud back up for off line content and maintaining everything on the cloud in the first place anyhow. I don’t have enough tech understanding or familiarity with Amazon to address the second Q but would be interested.
I would assume there is always a way for players to serve the SME market away from the big boys e.g. Fortinet in cyber security vs Checkpoint, Palo Alto and Cisco.
Cheers
Ant
Hi Ant, that’s what was confusing me. I read Tinker’s This is of course Carbonite’s business. A business that just 6 months ago was business critical… I no longer need at all as saying he no longer needs a business like Carbonite at all. But I may have misread it.
Saul
Ok - I will leave it to Tinker to clarify.
Cheers
Ant
My point is that I no longer have any need to back up business critical desktops, laptops, or servers. Also that the choice between Windows and Mac is now irrelevant in regard to operating systems.
So as it applies to either of those topics, I no longer have a need for a service like Carbonite on that basis. I have nonida how Carvonite might apply to the large server farms that service cloud services like Amazon or Microsoft or Dropbox provide, but the PC back up services that Carbonite provides are no longer a service I have any need for. Not as a small business, and not on a personal level.
I do not know what Carbonite does other than the PC backup business that it advertises on the radio, but that service no longer provided any value to me given the cloud services I use.
Tinker
3 Likes
the PC back up services that Carbonite provides are no longer a service I have any need for. Not as a small business, and not on a personal level.
Thanks Tinker, That’s what I thought you were saying.
Saul
FWIW, we used to subscribe to Carbonite’s PC backup service for a few years. My wife was worried about losing the kids’ pictures and a few work-related documents. Then we figured out we had x amount of space on our Google drive thanks to having a Gmail account and the rest we store on Amazon. When you’re a member of Amazon Prime you get a decent chunk of cloud memory space. So a good year or so ago we figured out we didn’t need Carbonite’s services any more.
This is just our experience with Carbonite and I have no idea what other services they provide or whether they’ll be a good investment going forward.
Matt
Long GOOGL
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So a good year or so ago we figured out we didn’t need Carbonite’s services any more.
It’s starting to look as if Carbonite is a company whose time has passed, unless they have a second line of business that we don’t understand.
Saul
I think Carbonite will have a tough time expanding its market significantly.
A) Their basic plan only backs up the internal hard drive of your computer. External hard drives cost most, and then you only get Windows support, not Mac.
B) The real pitch for this kind of product against Dropbox, Google Drive, Amazon, etc., boils down to 2 things:
. 1) The backup is automatic. You don’t have to remember to copy files.
. 2) Files are encrypted before being sent up.
But, there’s a lot of competition. PC Mag did a review of these services 6 months ago (http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2288745,00.asp), and Carbonite was is the lower half:
If you just want to back up your PC files to prepare for the occasional crisis, Carbonite is a fine choice. It stands out in the crowded online backup space with its ease of use, unlimited storage, and continuous backup. Against these strengths, however, you have to weigh its lack of support for external disks, limited sharing features, and the short period deleted files are saved. If those are concerns, you’re better off with one of the PCMag Editors’ Choice online backup services: CrashPlan for its innovations, SOS Online Backup for its super speed and powerful features, or IDrive for its wealth of features at a low cost.
Now, yeah, the top-rated service at PC Mag gets some pretty bad comments from users, so you should probably take what PC Mag says as recommended with a grain of salt, but any way you look at this there is steep competition and I don’t see how any one of these services is going to break out.
3 Likes
I believe I may be of help here…
Carbonite (at least as I understand it) is an archival form of storage, i.e. one where material is placed in compressed form for later retrieval and use. Think in terms of creating electronic “time capsules”.
Cloud storage (generally speaking) generally means that materials are stored in such a way as to be used interactively. Depending on the type and nature of service, this might include sharing among various users, version control of materials, etc.
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