Think of online backup as electricity

We believe that digital consumers aren’t interested in data storage – yet. And we’ll help you help them get there!

People want to seamless service that provides value – just like electricity

We believe that people will rapidly start to choose their storage providers based on how they (and their family members) access and use their digital belongings. The way forward for the consumer is a combination of hardware (local hard drives and NAS, which have to be plug & play) and services, with seamless interfaces – which consumers will choose based on their usage (taking into account technological limitations – which will evolve over time). For example: people who want to share their family pictures will respond positively to an offer of online storage with the right interface, such as Google’s Picasa (or own our Central DataBank PhotoSafe offer), or could also take advantage of the storage capacities of services such as iFlick or MySpace. Within that scenario, people are buying storage without actually choosing to buy storage; rather they buy simplicity of use and the ability to share seamlessly. Same with MP3s that people might end-up storing with their providers of digital music.

We believe that things will change when people start realising that they have indeed spent money amassing digital capital over the years, which they would hate losing – and hence need “protecting”. When this time comes (we’re not there yet), digital consumers will surely be willing to pay for digital archiving services or tools. Within that scenario, people want to store away stuff that could come in handy in case of fire or loss of their physical hardware. It’s a bit like insurance: you don’t start looking to purchase a policy until it is either forced on you (we’re not there yet either) or you’ve experienced such a loss that you don’t want to take any chances anymore.

Help them organise their data – and they’ll adopt storage

We believe that the average PC user’s first problem is “how do I organise my data”. The logical, normal, accepted way is to rely on folders and subfolders. Some are trying to do away with this traditional approach and rely on indexing and search. At this stage none of the available services or software are really convincing – but no doubt that will change as the largest players (Google and Microsoft to name just a few) are working on it.

However, we don’t believe that anybody is really trying to put together a simple-to-use tool that would sit on the user’s PC and actually him/her get their files organise. All their files, not just MP3s (which you can do today) or pictures (same), but all their files – again, based on their own way of doing things. We at CDB believe that helping users organise their data and “improve their digital experience” is the key to selling them other services – starting with data storage in the background. That’s why we are currently putting together the specs for such as tool, through primary research and interviews, and partnerships with larger industry players.

Think of online backup as electricity

Online storage is now available to all consumers with a broadband connection to the Internet. Pretty much all file types can be easily and safely stored on a remote server – including videos and films in the right set up.

Today’s consumer view of online backup is that it’s still a bit technical and still a bit too expensive. We agree on the “expensive” bit, and we think prices will fall sharply, particularly in the consumer space. However, that’s what people were saying a hundred years ago about electricity. Today nobody thinks twice about switching on a light, and electricity is both ubiquitous and a very big business.

So we at CDB are working on turning online storage and backup into a utility: as simple as switching on a light, inexpensive (or all-you-can-eat packages) and enabling a whole lot of new access services which will make consumer’s life easier.