Acronis launches service provider licensing program, signs first two accounts

May 10, 2005, South San Francisco, CA — Acronis, Inc., the technological leader in storage management software, announced that it is now offering Web hosting providers with the ability to make Acronis True Image available to their customers as a value-added service. Now, hosting companies can image customer's Web and mail servers automatically, providing the customer with an exact duplicate image of their server as part of a disaster recovery and business continuity strategy.

Two hosting providers partnered with Acronis to launch the Service Provider Licensing program: 4Service Inc. of Encino, CA, and Wyre Forest Computer Solutions (WFCS) Ltd. of Worcestershire, UK.

"4Service specializes in disaster recovery/offsite data/business continuity and our clientele is primarily small and midsize businesses," said Andreas Raab, director of professional services at 4Service Inc. "We see it as our responsibility to provide services that help keep them in business and reduce their risk, and utilizing Acronis, we can accomplish this task.

"Only 38 percent of businesses have any kind of business continuity plan in place to keep them operating in the event of a disaster or disruption, according to the market research firm Dynamic Markets Ltd.," he added. "We see it as our value add to provide that disaster recovery and business continuity capability so that our customers won't suffer significant losses should their servers be lost due to a man-made or natural disaster."

"WFCS takes its customers' business welfare very seriously," said Paul Sillars, CEO of Wyre Forest Computer Solutions. "Data loss can be devastating to a company, large or small. We are building a special web site, www.serversimplicity.com, in order to provide world-class business continuity and disaster recovery solutions to our Web-based clients.

"Hosting providers become very close to their customers, since our business continuity plans will track closely with theirs. We've tested the disaster recovery offerings and we selected Acronis True Image for our customers because we know it's the most reliable and most efficient product in its class. Customers appreciate the forethought we put into developing services to make their businesses more efficient, and this is one more example of how we work to provide the best service possible for our customers."

"Hosting providers are more than just commodity vendor," said Max Tsypliaev, CEO of Acronis. "They are business partners with their customers, providing them with mission-critical outsourced services. By adding disk imaging disaster recovery and backup to their customers, they can ensure that should any significant problem befall the customer's hard disk, the hosting provider will have them up and running again in minutes, not hours or days."

"Acronis is known for its traditional retail and distribution operations," said Luis Andrade, director of OEM channel sales and business development. "This service is helping to expand the definition of the channel to reflect its evolution. Manufacturers, business partners and end users are becoming closer than ever, and this is one more example where service providers can bring enterprise-class solutions to small- and mid-size businesses."

Terms of the agreements were not released.