EMC has launched its new software-as-a-service (SaaS) system, which includes the the expansion of its Mozy online backup system to the enterprise.
The SaaS product, called EMC Fortress, is a scalable delivery platform to provide customers with centralised billing, management and metering.
The MozyEnterprise, the first SaaS solution to be built on EMC Fortress, brings online backup and recovery to desktops, laptops and branch office servers in larger organisations.
Mozy was purchased by EMC in September 2007 and has previously offered its online backup of desktops and laptops to smaller businesses and consumers - indeed it had some 500,000 customers for Mozy and MozyPro.
The new upgraded product has added features - including security from EMC arm RSA - and expanded support to make it more suitable for enterprise-level use.
"Our customers have been asking for it for some time... It's a new model for us," said Roy Sanford, vice president of markets and alliances at EMC. "It's been expanded for the bigger demands of larger organisations."
The system doesn't back up enterprise data centres, but offers browser-based backup to desktop PCs, laptops and smaller servers to an EMC data centre. "It's very good for home offices, mobile workers and laptops," he explained, adding some 80 per cent of PCs in use today have no such recovery protection.
The service is currently only available in North America, but will launch in the UK later this year. In the US, monthly subscription prices begin at $5.25 (2.70) per computer, plus a per gigabyte charge.
