KineticD Adds Affordable Remote Access To Flexible BackupKineticD Adds Affordable Remote Access To Flexible Backup

Online charge-by-the-gigabyte backup firm adds more affordable remote access service to desktop PCs, aimed at CPAs and others.A few years ago, I did a survey/review on online backup services. The one I liked best for data (as opposed to entire system for bare-metal restores, or photo/music/video/multimedia storage and sharing) was Data Deposit Box.

(For parking multi-gigabytes of media, you want a fixed-price service like Carbonite, and, of course, you should also compare features and prices from Mozy.)

My reasons at the time for recommending -- and going with -- Data Deposit Box included: 1) Their software does its saves each time a file is closed, not at scheduled times; 2) the saves are incremental, sparing bandwidth; 3) pricing is per-gigabyte ($2/GB/month -- as low as $1/GB/month for server customers using DDB for more than a year, and $1/GB or less for white label resellers); 4) versioning; 5) you can aggregate as many systems as you want under one account, e.g., a desktop and a notebook, a small office's worth, a raft of clients, or even systems belonging to that relative or friend who isn't doing their own backups . Plus, Data Deposit Box doesn't delete files when you delete them from your computer; they treat all customer data like an archive. (They do offer a clean-up wizard to prune your backups.)

DDB's offering wasn't perfect; it required closing files for saves to occur, not helpful if you leave Outlook open all day long (not a problem for me, as I don't use Outlook), and it was Windows-only.

But those are peccadilloes (for me, anyway); I've happily continued to use Data Deposit Box, and while I've only needed to rescue maybe a dozen files or earlier versions in a few years, I use it regularly as a "drive in the sky" to retrieve files when I'm away from my home office, or even to grab a file that's on a currently-off machine.

And while I don't know whether Data Deposit Box has been reading my mind, they've recently done upgrades that address my criticisms, e.g., with an Open File Driver that allows for backing up Outlook PST files and other files periodically, and clients for MacOS and Linux. (And some other services have, I'm sure, come closer with feature/pricing matches.)

Early in 2010, the company has made other interesting, more significant changes. They're changing their name, to KineticD, and calling themselves "cloud storage and remote access service designed especially for small businesses." They've added a GoToMyPC-like remote access service, KineticExtend. And they're targeting CPAs and accountants as one of their specific markets, e.g., as a benefit available through the National Society of Accountants (NSA).

According to Jamie Brenzel, CEO at KinecticD, the remote access service came from talking to users who often would restore files to a machine that didn't have the related application, e.g., Intuit QuickBooks files.

KineticExtend provides a secure connection without requiring separate VPN (Virtual Private Network) software or hardware -- and is priced much more aggressively than GoToMyPC or LogMeIn, which, according to Brenzel, can start at $30/user/month, although that can go down to as little as $5/user/month. "We expect to start at three or even two dollars per user per month, and go down to one dollar... and it's free during the beta testing."

Also, notes Brenzel, "We are developing an iPhone/iPad app for the remote desktop product."

Like I said, I've been very happy with the online backup, and I'm curious about the remote-access service.

That said, there are some serious positioning -- not technical -- issues here. One, KineticSecure isn't currently a "live drive in the sky." It's backup; to get a file or a directory takes a few more steps -- and seconds-to-minutes -- versus clicking through Windows Explorer. I suspect this makes file-sharing somewhat more cumbersome.

And while CPAs and accountants inarguably need backup, and can use remote access, vertical software/SaaS/cloud vendors like Intacct, Intuit (which offers both on-premises and online), Netacct, and XCentric are offering this natively. E.g., Intuit offers one-button file-sharing for on-premise users, and for SaaS/cloud offerings, CPA and client data and the associated software is all, by definition, accessible from any Internet-connected desktop, notebook, or smartphone.

But for good backup, I can vouch for KineticD, and more affordable remote-access to your desktop PCs, it sounds like a comparable good deal.