Symantec, Backup Exec, Watching Train Wrecks, and Helping 2M+ IT Folks
Symantec is in the news again. The slow-motion debacle of the company tearing itself apart continues. And it’s hurting a lot of people. I’ve personally spoken to quite a few Symantec employees who worked on Backup Exec (BE2012 to be specific) and have been laid off or are fleeing the train wreck (we’re hiring). I’ve personally spoken to quite a few new Unitrends customers (and partners – from distributors to VARs to MSPs) who have replaced Backup Exec (not just BE2012 but earlier versions as well). And now, with CEO Steve Bennett (he was the guy who replaced the former CEO Enrique Salem, who was fired in mid-2012 because of Symantec’s many problems) announcing poor results, investors in Symantec are taking a huge beating as well.
People like to watch train wrecks. There are a lot of reasons psychologists given for this phenomenon, but the most reasonable one I’ve heard isn’t simple prurient interest but instead is based on appreciating your luck in not being involved. But something else people do when train wrecks occur is help. Unitrends is growing like crazy – so we’ve been hiring folks from Symantec and will continue to do so. But we asked ourselves yesterday – what do we do about the over two million customers of Backup Exec who are getting hammered by poor support and product issues?
We do a lot of Backup Exec replacement. The reason we do it is pretty simple. Unitrends continues to offer strong heterogeneous protection of both virtual and physical environments – and we offer not just Windows, Mac OS, and Linux but Novell, Unix, and a lot of other operating systems as well (operating systems Symantec has thrown out of BE2012.) We offer both VMware HOS-based instant recovery and Windows physical instant recovery. We continue to offer an integrated, simple, and elegant user interface with our Simply Scalable™ technology that allows (for instance) multiple server per job scheduling, as well as simpler single server per job scheduling (one of the things Symantec broke in BE2012). And we continue to be absolutely obsessed in terms of providing the best customer support in the industry.
But we can and should do more. So effective immediately, Unitrends offering up to 50% discount on all of our data protection (backup, archiving, replication, instant recovery, deduplication, and a ton more) physical appliances and our virtual appliances for Backup Exec customers. Call us or e-mail us for more detail.
Look – it’s obvious we have a clear motivation here to drive more business here. But I can tell you, with our recent aggressive price reductions on our appliances, that another 50% off is pretty darned skinny in terms of running a company and investing in future R&D, supporting support, and all the other things that go into running a company. But it’s the right thing to do – for Unitrends – and more importantly – for those millions of customers who are currently involved in this train wreck.
