The Boston Business Journal recently released this year's list of the best places to work. And I'm happy to announce that Carbonite made the list! There were over 400 companies nominated for this honor and the list of the top 60 companies was determined based partly on employee surveys. Carbonite and the other 19 midsized companies will be ranked in order and then honored at a breakfast event on June 11th at the Seaport Hotel & World Trade Center.

I can't tell you how pleased I am that Carbonite has received this honor. There are a lot of smart, hard-working and innovative people who have helped make Carbonite a tremendous success. Our rapid growth as a company has challenged our employees and given them opportunities to do things they've never done before. They've risen to the occasion time and time again and I am very proud of the things they've accomplished. It feels good to know that they enjoy working for Carbonite and take pride in this company. Every employee we have contributes to making Carbonite one of the best places to work in Boston.

— Dave
CEO, Carbonite

Last night Carbonite was selected as a winner of the New England Innovation Awards by the Small Business Association of New England.

Over 160 companies were selected to participate in the awards process and present to a panel of judges why their company should be chosen as one of the most innovative and successful companies in New England.

Carbonite was selected as one of the 16 finalists two weeks ago and, after a final presentation to the judges, we were selected as a winner! Our president and COO, Keith, was even told by one of the lead judges that Carbonite was actually the top point winner with the 50 judges.

Some of the past winners of this award are:

•Ben and Jerry's
•Genzyme
•iRobot
•Nantucket Nectars
•Staples
•The Mathworks

This award means a lot to the Carbonite team. We're constantly working hard to bring innovation into our products, while at the same time keeping them as simple and easy-to-use as possible. Taking complex technology and making it simple is no small feat, and we're honored to be recognized for our innovation and the strides we've taken to make online backup available to the average consumer.

— Dave
CEO, Carbonite

A few months ago, we introduced our iPhone app. Since then, I've gotten so much use out of it. I love being able to access my backed up files from my iPhone no matter where I am. If I'm sitting at the airport and someone calls and urgently needs a document, I can just pull it up on the iPhone and email to them. I don't need to locate a WiFi hotspot or worry about booting up my laptop.

I used to use remote desktop software to access files on my PCs when I'm travelling, but I had to remember to leave my PC turned on. Not so with Carbonite — from my iPhone I can get at every file on every one of my PCs even if they are turned off. Hardly a day goes by when I don't use the Carbonite iPhone app. It's just amazing to have all your files at your fingertips.

Now we've made this wonderful functionality available to the millions of BlackBerry users out there. BlackBerry is still the 800 pound gorilla in the mobile market. There are over 30 million smartphones in the US and RIM had a 41.6% market share at the end of 2009 (compared to Apple's 25.3%).

The BlackBerry beta download is available on our web site today (visit www.carbonite.com/BlackBerry), and later in May it will be available for download from the BlackBerry app store. It's free, of course, to Carbonite subscribers.

Here's what you can do with the BlackBerry app:

• Browse: You can browse the directory structures on all of your Carbonite-backed-up computers.
• View: Bring up PDFs, photos, music and video files, Excel, Powerpoint, Word documents and other text files can be opened and viewed right on your BlackBerry.
• Share: You can forward any file via email, right from your phone.

We're totally excited about the mobile market. Stay tuned for more exciting Carbonite mobile apps in the near future!

— Dave
CEO, Carbonite

I just noticed that we passed 10,000 downloads of our Carbonite iPhone application and it's only been out a few months. It's such a useful app. My wife and I were in the car last week when she got a call from her publisher who urgently needed a copy of a chapter from her latest book. My wife's Mac is backed up with Carbonite, so she was able to find the file on her iPhone and email it to her publisher right from the car.

Recently, our chief operating officer, Keith Cooper, played me a voicemail that a friend of his had left for him. "Keith, this is Todd. I just downloaded your iPhone app. I didn't know you had one until yesterday and it is absolutely awesome! I can view all of my documents from my iPhone… so convenient. So, nice job! Very cool! Extremely cool!"

It's also gratifying to read some of the recent user reviews on the App Store: "Amazing App (5 stars) Unbelievable to have my PC with me. My only wish is for a slideshow for picture files. That would make this app perfect." "Great app, please make for the iPad (5 stars) Great app!" [Our iPhone app works on the iPad, but we'll work on releasing an iPad optimized version in the future – DF]. "Makes me a huge fan (5 stars) Needed it and it was there… Thank you!"

We also got a couple of black eyes, like this post: "Buggy and slow (1 star) Very slow especially when opening a directory with many files. Help file is incomplete with limited explanations. When opening very large PDFs, will crash randomly. App shows old PC subscriptions that no longer exist. Great concept, but needs a lot of polish!"

Well, good news: version 1.1 was just released to the App Store. This new version is much faster and uses much more sophisticated caching. The help section is improved, all known bugs are fixed and expired subscriptions no longer show up. It is much more polished from both a functional and graphical point of view. If you haven't tried the iPhone app, now is a good time. If you're a Carbonite subscriber, it's completely free. You can even use it during the free trial period.

Stay tuned for more product announcements on the mobile front in the months to come.

— Dave
CEO, Carbonite

I ran across this blog post last week:

“

My heart goes out to local music composer Roslyn Catracchia. Thieves broke into her Aina Haina home the other day and stole, among other things, two computers and a backup drive containing her life's work of of musical scores and musicals. That includes the musical score for stage production of "The Princess and the Iso Peanut," which will be running at the Hawaii Theatre this month… if Catracchia had backed up her computer using Carbonite, resurrection of the last files would be a simple download to a new computer.

This reminds me of a similar incident a few years ago involving film director Francis Ford Coppola — someone broke into his house and stole his computer and backup hard drive and he lost 15 years of photos, screenplays, and writing. This sort of thing happens all the time. Lenovo published a report a few years ago that suggested that almost 10% of laptops eventually get stolen or lost.

— Dave
CEO, Carbonite

After lots of discussions with our small business users, we're happy to say that the product they've been asking for — Carbonite Pro — has arrived! We think it does a great job of meeting the needs of the various business owners and managers — especially with regards to being simple to use and a great value.

First, unlike the Carbonite you're used to where you get unlimited backup of one PC, Carbonite Pro lets you back up an unlimited number of PCs. There is just one account to manage and protect all the PCs in your office.

Then, since most small businesses don't have a full time IT person, we designed Carbonite Pro so virtually any office administrator can easily use it. Everything is in plain English (no confusing technical terms) and the dashboard is simple to use.

With Carbonite Pro, there's no per-computer charge and you only pay for the amount of backup space you use. And pricing is based on a simple tiered system.

You may not have any idea how much space your company needs and that's why we provide a month free. Throughout the month, you can use the dashboard to see how much space your company is using. You can also see the amount of storage used by each employee. So if someone gets carried away and backs up some very large files, you'll see it.

There are lots more easy-to-use features in Carbonite Pro. To add a new user, just enter the person's email address and Carbonite will send that user a pre-authorized link to install Carbonite Pro. In fact, the user doesn't even have to be in the office to set up Carbonite Pro. (Sales teams and others who are always on the road or who work at home will love it.) And what if one of your employees leaves the company? It's easy to immediately freeze that employee's account, stop any unauthorized downloading from the backup, and re-assign access of those files to someone else.

I could go on and on about the numerous benefits of Carbonite Pro, but we all know that a hands-on trial is the best way to see whether the product is right for you. So, if you’re a small business, just go to CarbonitePro.com and sign up for our free trial.

I absolutely believe you'll find Carbonite Pro very easy to use and the most cost effective online backup solution on the market. When you try it, please let me know how you like it.

— Dave
CEO, Carbonite

Man, this is what I've been waiting for! I have my iPhone with me wherever I go (I have to confess to being a little obsessed with it) and now I can view my backed up files — anywhere, anytime — using the new Carbonite app for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

I had my first great experience with it while waiting for my plane at LaGuardia Airport. I was supposed to give a talk at a conference later that day, so I pulled up my PowerPoint presentation on my iPhone (the original is on my office computer) and reviewed it. I then spent 20 productive minutes looking over a contract. While still waiting at the gate, I decided to browse my favorite pictures of me and my daughter high above the clouds on the top of Mt. Washington.

The Carbonite app gives me access to the backed up files from each of my computers, even if the computers are turned off. And I don't have to be logged into a Wi-Fi connection or lug my laptop with me. It displays my photos, documents, and other important files and allows me to share any of my backed up files with someone else via email, right from the app. It's fast and super-simple. I'm really proud of this Carbonite app and I hope you all will find it as useful as I do.

The best part? It's free for all Carbonite users. To learn more or download the app, go to www.Carbonite.com/iPhone.

— Dave
CEO, Carbonite

I read an interesting article on Yahoo news this morning: 1 in 3 laptops die in the first three years.

The survey, conducted by SquareTrade, a warranty company, highlighted the following statistics: Looking at the first 3 years of ownership, 31% of laptop owners reported a failure to SquareTrade. Two-thirds of this failure (20.4%) came from hardware malfunctions, and one-third (10.6%) was reported as accidental damage. The complete report is available here: http://www.squaretrade.com/htm/pdf/SquareTrade_laptop_reliability_1109.pdf

These findings correlate quite well with the actual behavior of our users: approximately 11% of our users have to do a full restore of their data each year. Over three years, that's almost exactly the same 33% number. Another interesting statistic from our own user base is that almost half of all users do a partial restore each year — mostly to recover accidentally deleted or overwritten files.

I'll bet that if you asked the average computer user what the likelihood is of their computer data getting destroyed, they would guess a much lower number. Having a 1 in 3 chance that you are going to lose everything on your PC only highlights why online backup is so important.

— Dave
CEO, Carbonite

I am very pleased to announce that my long-time business partner and Carbonite CTO has won the coveted "CTO of the Year" award from the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council. The award was given at a big dinner at the Boston Marriott last week, and we're very proud of Jeff. He joins a group of technology leaders from the Northeast that includes many of the pioneers of today's IT industry. Having worked with Jeff for more than 25 years through 4 other startups, it is impossible for me to contemplate starting a company without him. He's that rare combination of technical guru, sensible business head, and mentor for the technical team. Congratulations Jeff!

— Dave
CEO, Carbonite

Our Mac product, which launched earlier this year, continues to receive a good reception from the media.

We've recently had reviews published with MacFormat and MacWorld magazines.

Christopher Phin from MacFormat awarded Carbonite 4/5 stars and appreciated our efforts to design a Mac version of the product:

“

Unlike many companies that have developed a PC application and then gone on to make a Mac version, the developers genuinely seem to have 'got' the Mac."

MacWorld magazine also awarded Carbonite 4/5 stars. Karl Hodge noted how the low cost is small price to pay for piece of mind.

“

The client is highly configurable and can be set to run when it's convenient. Costing around £3 a month to run, it's a low price for a little peace of mind."

— Dave
CEO, Carbonite