Online backup: business opportunity for service providers
In it’s March, 2004 report “Online Server Backup Services Cost Less and Deliver More” analyst Gartner, Inc. clearly states what it calls “The Promise of Online Server Backup” to be a potential growth market. This growth is stimulated by the pervasiveness of the Internet, higher bandwidth levels at lower costs and the continuously decreasing storage hardware costs.
Although the quoted research is US based, it is arguably safe to extrapolate the conclusions to the Western European markets, with high DSL penetration rates in major markets such as the Nordics, Benelux, France, Germany and Italy. Also the business landscape is scattered with Small to Medium sized Businesses (SMB), with their inherent limitations regarding IT staffing and expertise, forming a compelling argument for outsourcing functions, such as the backup process.
The ever lower bandwidth prices are conversely an argument for Service Providers to keep an eye out for new business opportunities to generate additional – preferably margin-rich – revenue streams. Also generally Service Providers have excellent internal capabilities in areas such as security, disaster recovery and business continuity. After all, their entire business depends on continuous operation. The challenge for them is to translate these capabilities into value added services that can be sold and delivered to their customers using the existing infrastructure.
Service Providers hence are in a unique position to benefit from the emerging demand for outsourced backup solutions. The opportunity is theirs to take.
IASO Backup Technology is positioned as a full service solution partner to the Service Provider community. The IASO Backup Service Provider Edition provides Internet Service Providers, Telecom Operators and other ICT services organisations with a unique service platform to deliver a variety of backup and value added storage solutions. Using our systems integration services, this platform can be tightly integrated into the provider’s front- and back-office systems and business processes. Probably even more importantly, service providers can benefit from our hands-on experience with setting up and running such a service, both from technical/operational and from marketing/commercial perspectives. Through this combination of strengths, a unique service capability arises, with excellent revenue and margin prospects and an unusually short time-to-market.