Data Backup Digest

Acronis are a popular and global data company who are perhaps most well known for their Acronis True Image program. However, the company also publish backup and sync software for enterprise use. Acronis recently announced that they have acquired BackupAgent, a firm formed in 2005 who sell cloud backup services to small and medium sized businesses through their platform.

Acronis’ cloud strategy is to allow managed service providers, hosting companies and telecom operators to give full data protection to their customers. This means the ability to store data in the providers’ or the customers’ data centres, or alternatively in a public cloud. The acquisition of BackupAgent will help with these goals.

BackUpAgent have nearly a decade of experience within the industry, but it’ll be more than the company knowledge that Acronis wish to soak up. The firm also has a huge network of partners and over 50000 customers globally; figures like these are golden to Acronis as it means they can begin targeting new customers smoothly and quickly.

It isn’t just Acronis who will benefit from the acquisition, but service providers too. They will be able to take full advantage of Parallels Automation, a BackupAgent solution, which allows quick deployment of cloud backup to customers at a relatively low cost. Research carried out by Parallels SMB Cloud Insights claims that data backup and recovery is one of the top three most demanded services by clients, a need that Acronis will now be able to satisfy even better than before.

Acronis will also integrate their systems into BackUpAgent’s. Eventually the former wish to power the latter through their AnyData Engine technology. This provides services such as ability to disaster recover in the cloud, context-aware backup, support for multiple destination backup, physical and virtual backup, and file level and full system backup for desktop and servers.

“With over 15 years of experience helping service provider businesses in SWsoft and Parallels, I clearly understand the customer need and the Service Provider revenue opportunity with a cloud data protection solution,” said Serguei Beloussov, the CEO of Acronis. “Using Acronis technology, BackupAgent cloud expertise and existing channel, plus our deep technology and business ties with Parallels, we are able to deliver the most complete and the most service provider-friendly solution on the market.”

Roland Sars and Robbert van Geldrop are the founders of BackupAgent, who stated that the acquisition fits great with their expansion plans to become the world’s leading cloud backup player. Acronis have over 4.5 million customers, so there’s no doubt that BackupAgent are merging into one of the industry’s current leaders.

“This acquisition will bring only good to our service providers, as they become part of a worldwide ecosystem of thousands of channel partners. We are extremely proud of the complete BackupAgent team,” the duo said.

It was not publically disclosed how much the acquisition cost. Although BackupAgent received $2 million in investment last year, that’s not a great indicator in itself of how much the company is worth, although it does show the level of interest and support they had from key investors.