An expanded strategic partnership will bring Carbonite data protection products to Iron Cloud customers. Both vendors are confident the move will prove mutually beneficial.
Iron Cloud customers will soon be getting Carbonite backup product pitches from Iron Mountain.
In an expansion to a strategic partnership between the two vendors, Iron Mountain plans to integrate the Carbonite Data Protection Platform into Iron Cloud.
Iron Cloud is Iron Mountain's data management platform that's hosted within the vendor's data centers. Carbonite Data Protection Platform offers a host of backup capabilities, including disaster recovery, endpoint device protection and workload migration.
Customers won't notice any changes to their existing products. Rather, they may receive calls or pitches from Iron Mountain offering Carbonite backup through the Iron Cloud platform and explaining the capabilities of those products.
Mutually beneficial
The relationship between Carbonite and Iron Mountain came into existence through Carbonite's acquisition of EVault, a cloud-based disaster recovery provider with which Iron Mountain had a partnership since 2014.
"When we get these acquisitions, it sometimes takes months for us to work through relationships and see if there's anything there for us to build on," said Norman Guadagno, senior vice president of marketing at Carbonite, based in Boston. After examining its inherited link with Iron Mountain, Carbonite found potential to bring its product to a wider audience.
Carbonite has historically been better known as a consumer brand. We worked aggressively over the past few years to shift that perception.
Norman Guadagnosenior vice president of marketing, Carbonite
Carbonite backup has hit what Guadagno described as a "sweet spot" in the SMB space, but the vendor is chasing larger enterprises, too. He said one of the key benefits of the strengthened partnership is access to Iron Mountain's customer base.
"It allows us to be associated with the Iron Mountain brand, which we think is very powerful," Guadagno said. "It gives us exposure to their large customer base and allows us to learn about the different types and sizes of businesses that are a good fit for Carbonite."
For Iron Mountain, the partnership enhances its data protection offerings. According to Brendan Carr, product manager at Boston-based Iron Mountain, although Iron Mountain works with other data protection vendors, it typically leads with Carbonite when addressing customers' backup, disaster recovery and disaster-recovery-as-a-service needs.
"We believe they're the best-in-breed in this space," Carr said. "They help us address the [customers'] challenges most efficiently with their technology."
In addition, the partnership helps further guide Carbonite's product development by presenting challenges that Iron Mountain's customers face.
"Carbonite [Server] VM Edition was driven a lot by what they were hearing from Iron Mountain," Carr said.
A shift in branding
Christophe Bertrand, senior analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group in Milford, Mass., said the partnership makes sense for Carbonite backup, as it tries to change its focus.
"Carbonite was originally a consumer brand," Bertrand said. "In the past three or four years, through acquisitions, they've really repositioned the brand as a business-to-business brand, and this is the next step in establishing that brand further."
Carbonite was an early success in cloud backup, selling mainly to consumers and small businesses. According to Guadagno, the Iron Mountain partnership is important in reinforcing Carbonite's push into the business-to-business market.
"Carbonite has historically been better known as a consumer brand. We worked aggressively over the past few years to shift that perception," Guadagno said. "Being associated with a brand like Iron Mountain continues to reinforce that."
While Iron Mountain will rebrand Carbonite backup software as part of its Iron Cloud, Carr said "the Carbonite logo is not something we hide from our customers. We're very proud to let them know that this is who we use, and this is who we partner with."
