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Microsoft completes acquisition of Vembu

lenin — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 22:08:38 +0000

Well, it’s time to let the cat out of the bag. Vembu Technologies is now a Microsoft Company and this deal with Microsoft has been going on for quite some time now behind the scenes. Microsoft now completes acquisition of Vembu Technologies and its assets for USD 580 Million. This acquisition will enable Microsoft Corporation to offer Data Protection services to SMBs and Mid-Market Enterprise across heterogeneous physical, virtual and application-level environments. Vembu Technologies is rapidly growing amongst the Channel Partner space and this deal would enable Microsoft’s Channel Partners to offer cost effective online backup service to their customers using their existing hardware infrastructure.

With this acquisition, cloud based recovery services based on Microsoft Azure Cloud will also be offered where an MSP or a value added reseller can choose to resell branded online backup service. Vembu technologies will soon release communication to all its Channel Partners regarding what this acquisition means for them. For the near future, Vembu Technologies will operate as an independent company till the acquisition and migration is fully completed.

There was this heated bidding war which went on between Microsoft and Google with regards to the acquisition of Vembu Technologies as both of them wanted to establish a strong presence amongst the Channel Partner space with regards to offering a solid backup service to SMBs. These heated exchanges where then noticed by the FTC which then intervened and after sustained negotiations handed over 68% of ownership to Microsoft and the 32% of share to Google.

Hence going forward, all client installations of Vembu will be handled by Google and all Server installation of Vembu will be handled by Microsoft and Vembu is looking to release necessary documentation on whom to contact when an issue arises as soon as possible. Here’s what our VP – Storage Products, Sathish Subramanian has to say about this acquisition. “We have been constantly contacted by Microsoft and Google to complete this acquisition and there were also times where we were forced to avoid taking calls with regards to this acquisition. Only after the intervention of FTC did things start to settle down and we felt now is the right time to release this critical information. However, we believe that this breakthrough now opens new horizons for our Channel Partners and they can now enjoy the benefits of having the option of being branded by both Google and Microsoft for offering their backup service”

We don’t expect any price rise amidst of this acquisition and we don’t have any plans to increase prices in the near future too. The management team of Vembu will now focus on a different industry segment which will be revealed shortly. To know more information on this acquisition, please check the official press release here

The above post was written by Lenin Srinivasan of Vembu Technologies. Vembu Technologies is a backup software vendor whose product, StoreGrid, powers the online backup services of a large number of service providers across the globe. Besides remote backup, StoreGrid is also used for on premise backups of workstations and servers at various companies & universities.

Vembu Pro Online Backup Service allows Value Added Resellers and Managed Service Providers to offer online backup service to their customers without worrying about storage or hardware infrastructure.

Vembu Home is the only FREE consumer backup solution for free local backups and optional Amazon Cloud backups. Get your FREE COPY now

Retro games making a ‘new’ comeback – in Google logo

lenin — Fri, 21 May 2010 18:34:54 +0000

Somewhere down my memory lane, I remember playing PAC-MAN as a coin operated arcade game. Can you imagine playing the PAC-MAN game in the Google logo? You can do that today and tomorrow in the special Google ‘Doodle’ that is out.

This special doodle was created in the honor of PAC-MAN’s 30th Birthday, where you can refresh some of your old 8-bit memories and play PAC-MAN in the Google’s first ever playable doodle. You can start playing the game by clicking the ‘Insert Coin’ button on the home page of the Google or wait for few seconds for the game to start automatically. One more item to note here, Google has managed to remove the ‘I’m feeling lucky’ button, where one of our old prophecy came true, atleast for the next 48 hours.

The PAC-MAN game has not done really bad either – it has kept up with the latest technologies. Since it initially made its appearance as an arcade game, it has made its appearance in PC, XBOX, PSP, and iPhone and now in the Google logo. This leaves me to expect a multi-player Cloud based PAC-MAN game for the PAC-MAN’s 31st Birthday. With Cloud Computing, I can visualize these cloud based retro games in the near future.

For Managed Service Providers, who would like to play PAC-MAN on the Google logo, enter the code ‘Online Backup Software’ on the Google Search box and then press the ‘Insert Coin’ button, aloha! your game is on!

Hurry up! This is only for the next 48 hours, then the ‘I’m feeling lucky’ button will come back and put you out of luck!

Google's new doodle PAC MAN

Vembu Home is the only FREE consumer backup solution for free local backups and optional Amazon Cloud backups. Get your FREE COPY now.

Life of an MSP – in less than 30 seconds

lenin — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 16:14:57 +0000

Google recently aired an ad during the Super Bowl using Google searches and a little music – a great idea! The ad was Google standard – classy, minimalist and to the point. Imagine having your customers come in and design, create ads for your brand and even advertise them for free while you sit back and have fun! This would be any marketer’s wildest dream come true.

Here’s Google’s invitation -

“All you need to do is type in your Google searches, pick some music and — presto! — you’ve got your very own Search Story to share with your friends or showcase on our YouTube channel”

They have created a simple video creation tool that allows anyone to create a video based on the Google Searches. We were fiddling with this new tool and ended up creating a video about the typical searches of a managed service provider.

Vembu Home is the only FREE consumer backup solution for free local backups and optional Amazon Cloud backups. Get your FREE COPY now.

How do you want to name your backup service? – Ask Google

lenin — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 20:21:35 +0000

Are you offering an Online Backup Service? Then you must have come across a plethora of naming conventions for marketing your backup service. Some people call them Online Backup and some call them Remote Backup, Offsite Backup, Data Backup, Internet Backup, blah blah backup…. Wait! What difference does a naming convention is going to make to your backup service offering? The answer is simple. Ask Google.

As a Service Provider it becomes necessary to understand the terms that your customer uses and effectively communicate back and Market using the same ‘terms’. ‘Google Insights’ has the innate ability to analyze the search patterns on a Geographic scale over a period of time and precisely report back with the ‘Search Terms’ that people tend to use. The Graph below shows the usage of frequently used ‘Backup Terms’ and its interest level over a period of time.

As you can see from the Graph, number of people searching for ‘Online Backup’ has grown tremendously since 2004 and number of people using the term ‘Remote Backup’ and ‘Data Backup’ came down gradually. It’s not over! This does not mean that everyone has to go with the term ‘Online Backup’ for marketing their service. This report just means that the global search volume for the term ‘Online Backup’ increased since 2004. However, if you are confining this result to a city or country, you will be surprised to see ‘different results’.

The above report says that people from New Zealand, South Africa, United Kingdom, Hong Kong etc prefer using the term ‘Data Backup’ rather than ‘Online Backup’ and people from UK are more comfortable with the term ‘Remote Backup’ than ‘Online Backup’.

Likewise, the way people name a service differs from region to region and with the help of Google Insights you can understand the search behavior of your customers and tune your website accordingly to attract more customers using Organic Search Results.

Vembu Home is the only FREE consumer backup solution for free local backups and optional Amazon Cloud backups. Get your FREE COPY now.

Google Wave invites

lux — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 06:07:15 +0000

We’ve got 5 a sack-load of Google Wave invites to give away – to the first five people who ask for them in the comments below.

Go ahead; add your name below. We’ll accomodate all we can.

PS: invites will be emailed to the email ID associated with your profile.

The above post was written by Lakshmanan (Lux) Narayan of Vembu Technologies. Vembu Technologies is a backup software vendor whose product, StoreGrid, powers the online backup services of a large number of service providers across the globe. Besides remote backup, StoreGrid is also used for on premise backups of workstations and servers at various companies & universities.

Vembu Home is the only FREE consumer backup solution for free local backups and optional Amazon Cloud backups. Get your FREE COPY now.

I got a Google Wave invite. Now what?

lux — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 10:35:31 +0000

Week 1: I want a Google Wave invite. I want a Google Wave invite

Week 2: I got a Google Wave invite. I got a Google Wave invite

Week 3: It’s lonely here. What do I do with Google Wave?

Sounds familiar?

I was (and am still, in some sense) in that boat – till the guy who gave me the invite just gave me two tips that really helped.

For all those of you who got into Google Wave, only to find that you and your (wave invitation) benefactor make up your entire wave universe, here’s how you can connect with the rest of the world:

a) Type “with:public” in the search box to search for public waves – and start participating in them. There are Sudokus, guides, conversations & spam.

b) Create a wave of your own and make it public by adding public@a.gwave.com as wave participant. There’s a small ‘trick’ needed with this one. When you Click on the + beside the Manage Contacts link and type public.a.gwave.com as a contact, you’ll get an unfriendly “User does not have a Google Wave account” message. Just ignore it, and hit the enter key. The contact gets added and is called ‘Public’ in your contacts list. Now you can create a new wave and add ‘Public’ to the conversation. And don’t forget to add me: aluxtinas AT googlewave.com

That’s it.

Hello World, anyone?

Note to self: try & rack up some good karma points by illustrating the above in a a video.

Hat Tip: The ‘guy’ who gave me the Google Wave invite and these inputs is James Ramya Rajan. Thanks, James.

Vembu Home is the only FREE consumer backup solution for free local backups and optional Amazon Cloud backups. Get your FREE COPY now.

Want free WiFi? Head to the G.Y.M.

lux — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 05:37:01 +0000

Apologies for the corny headline. This has nothing to do with working out.

But it is good news for all those laptops that are backing up online…

G.Y.M. is short for Google, Yahoo & Microsoft. The three companies seem to be in the midst of a flurry of FREE WiFi announcements. Here’s stuff that came through from G.Y.M. in the last 48 hours:

Google announced free WiFi at 47 airports – through the holiday season and into January 2010. They even have a FreeHolidayWifi web site on this. In what could easily be spun as a “limit the joy to Microsoft” tactic, Seattle airport joins the list of 47 a little later.

Yahoo announced free WiFi at Times Square, NYC – for a whole year.

Microsoft, not to be outdone, and in an effort to popularize Bing, has announced an interesting promotion going with JWire. Their “search for access” program offers a session of free Wi-Fi access in exchange for a search on Bing. Users are presented with their search results, and they can then enjoy free Internet service for a specified time period.

So there, you have it. Connectivity can’t be your excuse this season – for not backing up! I’m curious though – how did the free WiFi idea hit G.Y.M. – at almost the same time (all of the above announcements happened in the last 48 hours)

Crunchgear has an article on this too.

Prediction: Amazon will make a similar announcement – soon.

Vembu Home is the only FREE consumer backup solution for free local backups and optional Amazon Cloud backups. Get your FREE COPY now.

All Clouds are not Equal

lux — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 12:59:05 +0000

Some time ago, we’d written about David Chappell’s talk on Windows Azure, and why it was different. I’d also mentioned that I’d share the slide deck once I got it from David. Here it is.

(the ppt is cued to slide 27 which is where the fun stuff begins – the comparisons with other platforms. As we said earlier, the ‘neutrality’ with which this was presented was refreshing)

Read on…

The Windows Azure Platform a Perspective Chappell

Vembu Home is the only FREE consumer backup solution for free local backups and optional Amazon Cloud backups. Get your FREE COPY now.

Wave to me

lux — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 07:10:17 +0000

Today I felt like a kid with a new toy – a new toy that was temporarily out of stock (and so my friends couldn’t get at it…yet).

I got a Google Wave invite!

What’s Google Wave? You’ve either been living under a rock or even worse…you have a life!

Anyway, Google Wave is a new product/service form Google that is currently in “Preview Mode”. Preview mode seems to be the mode before Google goes into a never ending Beta. Google Wave aims/claims/hopes to usher in a new way (wave?) of communicating.

The rationale is simple – if email were to be invented today, what would it look like? Google argues that it wouldn’t resemble anything like what we use now – all of which they say are (they say) incremental improvements over their predecessor emailosauruses – remnants of a jurassic era in computing.

Google Wave is (apparently) for today’s communication needs!

If you’ve got an hour and some minutes to spare, you could join 5.9million other people and check out this video – aptly called the looooooong video. Yes it’s long, but it’s guaranteed to knock your socks off. Trust me.

Now excuse me while I play in my Google Wave sandbox. If I get any invites, I’ll be sure to let you know.

(Shameless plug: if backup were to be invented today, what would it look like? The answer is here)

Vembu Home is the only FREE consumer backup solution for free local backups and optional Amazon Cloud backups. Get your FREE COPY now.