Ouch!  In a story reported by Courthouse News Service, a Florida dentist initiated a federal class action lawsuit against Carbonite for lost data due to the backup service provider’s lack of support for Windows Vista.  This incident follows Carbonite’s own publicized lawsuit against one of its vendors for supplying Carbonite with defective storage (ESG sounded off on this last March), which resulted in lost data for customers.

Carbonite has been targeting consumers with its online backup service (maybe you’ve seen their ads on the Bravo network or heard about them on drive-time radio?).  Earlier this month, the company introduced its Pro version—offering unlimited backup of PCs and administration through a single console.  The company claims that over 100,000 small businesses already use its  consumer service.  Ironically, Carbonite’s press release states support for (uh-oh) Vista …

“Carbonite Pro works with Windows XP, Vista, and 7, plus Windows Server 2003 & 2008. The consumer version works with Macs, too, but not the Pro version at this point.”

Carbonite Pro changes the economics of backup for small businesses since shifting from its “per seat” to a “per GB” pricing model.  What would have cost a small business $54.95 per employee per year for unlimited storage capacity would now only be a fraction of that.  A 30-person company backing up 10 GB per employee would have paid $1648.50 per year, but now would only pay about $250 per year for the same 300 GB of data—and they get a few central administration features!  That’s enticing … except for one small detail: potentially not being able to access the data you back up.

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Tags: Carbonite, online backup, service provider