Mozy shakes up reseller pricing

New pricing strategy claimed to be more channel friendly

Online backup storage provider Mozy has restructured its reseller pricing plan as part of the launch of its first ever UK channel programme.

Mozy, whose parent company Berkeley Data Systems was acquired in 2007 by storage vendor EMC, will no longer charge resellers the licencing fee for its backup services. Instead, resellers will be charged only for the amount of data they use monthly.

Daragh Donohoe, sales manager at Mozy, claimed charging for the licencing fee was making critical data backup unaffordable.

He said: "We have really turned our pricing strategy on its head. What we are doing now is removing licensing costs and this goes into our ability to support resellers and their needs.

"With the new pricing, we ensure the critical data that is being constantly backed up is captured. It is too cost prohibitive to charge for the licence too as it compromised the spend on backing up, which is critical."

"When you are out of the office, for example, you want to be assured that critical data is backed up, and there is a lot less of a risk that way."

A minimum contract of 12 months is required to join the programme, and Silver, Gold and Platinum tiers will be available.

Mozy does not have a target number of partners it wishes to work with, but two additional dedicated sales staff have been appointed to deal with the expected demand for the programme.

A key focus of the programme is to monitor backup continually, an aspect Donohoe thinks is often overlooked.

He explained: "You tend to only hear from customers once things have gone wrong, but there is no way of helping then; it is too late.

"With our new programme, there is monitoring ability throughout. You can see if backup has failed so that we can step in before it is too late. We take a very proactive approach.

"We have turned our programmes around and made them really channel friendly. It is our future in the industry," he added.