Code42 ends consumer CrashPlan backup plans to prioritize business services
Code42, the company behind the CrashPlan online backup service, stopped accepting new subscribers for its CrashPlan for Home plan on Tuesday, with the backup firm shifting its focus away from consumers to enterprise and small business customers.
The CrashPlan website advises users that, effective as of August 22, Code42 will no longer accept new CrashPlan for Home subscriptions nor renewals of existing subscriptions. The sunsetting of the service will apparently take place over several months, with CrashPlan for Home expected to cease on October 23, 2018.
The service will continue to honor existing CrashPlan for Home subscriptions during this time, and has extended customer subscriptions at no extra cost by 60 days, to give users time to transition to a new backup system.
For customers wanting to stay with the service, Code42 suggests they move over to CrashPlan for Small Business, which costs $10 per month per device. Customers choosing this option will have their data moved over and will be able to use CrashPlan for Small Business for the remainder of their current Home subscription for free, followed by a 75 percent discount off the service for the following 12 months.
Carbonite is being offered as an alternative option, selected as an "exclusive partner" to Code42 for home users. Just as with CrashPlan for Small Business, subscribers are being offered a price cut for switching services to Carbonite, this time a discount of 50 percent, though customers won't be charged until their CrashPlan for Home subscription expires.
For customers who have a CrashPlan for Home subscription that extends beyond October 22, 2018, CrashPlan will automatically upgrade their account to the Small Business plan before the end-of-support date.
"The needs of our business and consumer customers have diverged dramatically in the past few years," said Code42 president and CEO Joe Payne about the end of the consumer service. "With the rise in threats facing organizations today, we are uniquely positioned to deliver the data security and visibility solutions those organizations require. This continues to fuel our high growth and is driving our strategic decision to focus solely on business and education markets."
"We worked hard to find the best possible alternatives for CrashPlan for Home customers as we transition out of the consumer market."
The CrashPlan website advises users that, effective as of August 22, Code42 will no longer accept new CrashPlan for Home subscriptions nor renewals of existing subscriptions. The sunsetting of the service will apparently take place over several months, with CrashPlan for Home expected to cease on October 23, 2018.
The service will continue to honor existing CrashPlan for Home subscriptions during this time, and has extended customer subscriptions at no extra cost by 60 days, to give users time to transition to a new backup system.
For customers wanting to stay with the service, Code42 suggests they move over to CrashPlan for Small Business, which costs $10 per month per device. Customers choosing this option will have their data moved over and will be able to use CrashPlan for Small Business for the remainder of their current Home subscription for free, followed by a 75 percent discount off the service for the following 12 months.
Carbonite is being offered as an alternative option, selected as an "exclusive partner" to Code42 for home users. Just as with CrashPlan for Small Business, subscribers are being offered a price cut for switching services to Carbonite, this time a discount of 50 percent, though customers won't be charged until their CrashPlan for Home subscription expires.
For customers who have a CrashPlan for Home subscription that extends beyond October 22, 2018, CrashPlan will automatically upgrade their account to the Small Business plan before the end-of-support date.
"The needs of our business and consumer customers have diverged dramatically in the past few years," said Code42 president and CEO Joe Payne about the end of the consumer service. "With the rise in threats facing organizations today, we are uniquely positioned to deliver the data security and visibility solutions those organizations require. This continues to fuel our high growth and is driving our strategic decision to focus solely on business and education markets."
"We worked hard to find the best possible alternatives for CrashPlan for Home customers as we transition out of the consumer market."
Comments
They're not getting out of the home market; they're simply covering up a massive dent in their business model, or this is a classic bait and switch; I haven't decided which.
The Home plan offered backups for all the machines in your home. This is dumb: a family of four all downloading music and videos and whatever else will use an awful lot of resources. There's no way you can plan ahead with that sort of arrangement.
So what CrashPlan is doing is getting rid of the families that are eating them alive, and hoping that those that stay will migrate to a service where they can charge per machine.
This 'focus on business' is pure bull. They got the maths wrong
Maybe your average micro computer user doesn't think about backup, but I do. And I'd really appreciate a product that didn't suck. CrashPlan seemed like that product.
I already have an external HD with Carbon Copy Cloner, the Apple Time Capsule, and iCloud backup. I would like another online backup, but Carbonite won't be it. I was using Backblaze, but then CrashPlan seemed like a good alternative. Guess I was wrong about that.
I am just disgusted. And cheesed off that I have to find another backup option. Like most issues with Apple -- actually, all computer products -- this is way more trouble than it should be.
I wish there were spots available throughout the US to connect to 1GB fiber and complete your first backup. My internet speed is wouldn't allow me to backup any sooner than 7 months (just my SSD on my Mac).
Have now switched over to Pro following their instructions: present contract stays valid (and therefore paid for). Renewal will cost u$s 2,50/month for first year (which is less than the yearly subscription for home version), afterwards u$s 10/month (per device). So actually have nearly two years to decide whether to pay u$s 10 or switch to something else.
Great thing about CrashPlan is that they keep erased or lost files plus keep weekly/monthly yearly versions of documents you have worked on (all configurable). That is something I appreciate and not everyone has. So I can restore an old version from years ago.
Did not have family plan (no one wanted to share their PCs backup with me via one and only email/password) so no change there.
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Code42's offer to migrate to the Small Business plan is effectively a price increase. In my case likely the right choice given CrashPlan's strengths over the alternatives (true continuous backups, retention of versions forever, support of local backups, etc.)
I'll be researching their migration to Small Business given my 1TB of photos, digitized family 8mm films, music and general data. Who wants to upload that to another provider ESPECIALLY with Comcast's broadband CAP?!
I have since moved all my clients to BackBlaze and don't use Crashplan anymore. BackBlaze has it's own slew of problem, but in terms of pricing and the backup engine, it's extremely good. Their Windows and Mac agents are written with native code, hardly use any RAM or CPU resources, and the agent just runs silky smooth on most computers I put it on. I have one client backing up 6TB on one computer and Backblaze doesn't skip a beat. CrashPlan would choke and use tons more resources to accomplish the same goal.
My main problem with Backblaze is admin features for handling lots of computers across different companies and groups. This is something that CrashPlan excelled at, and something that BackBlaze hasn't taken seriously. However, price and backup engine are my #1 priorities, and BackBlaze wins out soley on those alone.