There’s a competitor of ours called Axxxx
They have a forum (if you hadn’t guessed already, you know who they are now)
One of the key rules on their forum is ‘no names of competitors’. So you’ll find references to us as Vxxxx. For example (from their forum): My reseller is close to dropping our service and switch to a vxxxx based solution because of these kinds of glitches. Please help.
You’ll also find references to some of the consumer backup services like Mxxx and Cxxxxxxxx (who is sometimes also referred to as Carb – in the fond hope that a reader will dismiss this reference as a discussion on the Atkins Diet)
Frankly, I find the whole thing rather childish and an insult to a Service Provider’s intelligence.
We run a forum too, but we leave it ‘open’ in the true spirit of the word. Sure, we’ve had our fair share of bouquets & brickbats….and positive & negative references to competitors’ products. They all make for a healthy discussion. And quite honestly, if you’re confident about your product, facilitating a free and open discussion is only to your advantage – in the long run!
So why this post, now? We’ve always had a quiet chuckle on Axxxx’s forum policies, but this recent post in response to Axxxx’s huge price rise really lowered the bar (notice the subtle irony)!
In the thread, there is a comment by a ‘thdrought’ wherein he says (grammar and typos are his own):
I am currently evaluating this software bring my clients online backups in-house. This is my second company I’m evaluating, and so far have no issues with this product. I’d like to get other Ahsay users comments on this product, and for the unhappy ones, maybe some reasons why you don’t like it.
As for other providers, I just warn to steer clear of V-e-m-b-u. I ran a trial of thier product for 1 week. Installation seemed easy enough, though all clients run a version of Apache web server. I thought this was very strange. Why are the backup clients needing to run Apache?
Not a single backup ever completed! Ever. Though the portal would say that they did. Weird… but I would get a failure email, followed by a sucess email and the portal always said “100% complete” on all those backups.
Then, the portal stopped working. Never could log back into it. A sales person from V-e-m-b-u called me, transferred me to technical support, which they “logged a ticket”, but never called me back. That was a week ago. I promptly uninstalled their portal, clients and made sure that the V-e-m-b-u directories were deleted from all.
If anyone else is looking at something else, please share, but even with the price increase, so far this product is looking better and better for a backup solution in this price range.
Now, that’s insulting. Not to us! We’re still laughing. It’s insulting to a service provider’s intelligence to assume that he won’t see through this hollow attempt by Axxxx to ‘doctor a conversation’. I’ll save the Sherlock Holmes post for a later date, but suffice to say that at least one other person thought the same and even mentioned so in the thread:
thdrought : I highly doubt you are a real person. You sound more like an Ahsay sales person trying to pretend to be a user.
Hungry for more XXX? Here’s another thread where their tech support replies saying:
May I ask what version of OBM are you currently using? Furthermore, may I ask if the machine in concern has “Shadow Protect” or “Sxxxxxxx Bxxxxx Exxx System Recovery” installed? If so, there is a Volume Shadow Copy conflict between the two software. Our development team has resolve the incompatibility issue. Could you please try patching your OBM to the latest version to see if the problem can be resolved?
(Note: Thanks to Symantec, Sxxxxxxxx is NOT StoreGrid)
Two tips before I sign off:
- If you’re an Axxxx partner looking for better prospects, please click here. And be sure to ask your sales rep for the ex-Axxxx special.
- If you’re planning on starting a backup software/service and want free publicity from your competition, call yourself Bxxxxx (yes, the URL is available)
Vembu Home is the only FREE consumer backup solution for free local backups and optional Amazon Cloud backups. Get your FREE COPY now.
Thanks for one more reason for me to move from Ahsay to Vembu (if a better product & service wasn’t reason enough :)
You are the highest priced service of them all. I picked Ahsay, because they are (were) 1/2 the price initally, and 80% less on renewals. Granted the software is buggy as all hxxx, but we’re in this business to make a profit.
Why do you have to pay a yearly full price ransom for your software every year. I liked yours better but have you considered lowering your prices, and those all confusing nickel and dime MSPU ??? It’s mind boggling. It’s like ordering bread, and paying extra for the knife, butter, glass of water and napkin.
rick
Rick,
Apologies for the delay in approving this comment; I was on holiday.
Our model for service providers has always been subscription based. We started with this model for various reasons – the most important ones being (a) it dovetails with the monthly metered utility model that the online backup industry predominantly follows, and (b) it helps us easily account for the staggered (across time) deployments that a service provider would have by simply permitting them to upgrade all their installations to the latest available version of the product, free of cost, as long as they have a license. The ‘traditional’ perpetual licensing model (where annual maintenance is separately charged) typically charges license fees anew (like a new product) for major versions. Admittedly, some online backup software companies, in a race to the bottom, tried expanding their customer base by offering minor and major upgrades within the annual maintenance charge; however this has repeatedly proven to be unviable and sooner or later, is followed by an attempt to ‘rationalize’ pricing. Axxxx is a case in point!
Obviously, if our model did not resonate with service providers, we wouldn’t have continued it! After 4 years & over 1500 partners, we believe our model and the pricing thereof makes sense to (most of) our partners and therefore they continue to use us and purchase more licenses. In this context, I also wouldn’t agree with us being the highest price service. While we aren’t the cheapest, we do believe our price point translates to a business model that is viable for our partners, and for us. This model also allows us to avoid price shocks – and forcing partners to reevaluate the viability of their existing models.
Admittedly, the MSPU model can get confusing. Hence, with v3.0, we’ve done away with this phraseology, and moved to something that’s hopefully a lot simpler (monthly client access licenses for clients, and free licenses for the backup and replication servers). Our sales team will be happy to speak with you if you’d like more details.
Let me know if I can be of further assistance.
Best wishes for the new year
Lux
Lux,
I have been evalutating Storegrid for sometime now before coming across Ahsay. I do recall
having a feature point comparsion between the 2 but seem to have lost it could you direct me
to such comparison. Also, my partner and I are looking for white papers and such not only
for Storegrid but for backup as a whole supporting Business Continuity planning. Tks for your
help. Btw, Storegrid technical has called me a number of times to help in a server setup problem
and this was solved. Very thankful!