The company cautioned that this is just an initial SAAS beta offering and will only include online backup service for disaster recovery. This is a non-paid beta and pricing will be announced later on. However, the plan is to take all of its software and port it to this online platform including the new Altris assets over a period of time.
Symantec is also pledging affordability with this offering and Jeff Hausman, senior director of product management for the company, said the SAAS model deliver cost savings, which means no capital outlay and less draw on internal IT resources.
“The vision for us is to better help SMBs who have limited resources and other challenges to getting protection. One way is by trying to find different models to get access to technology and whether they have limited budgets or expertise now they can get access a software package (for online backup) and we are trying to meet that need,” he said.
Symantec is not disclosing what products in its broad range of security and availability offerings that will move onto a SAAS offering next, Hausman said.
“We have a great deal of customers in the consumer space, the SMB space and in the enterprise space and we found that there is a mix of ways people want their technology.
“We will use the traditional approach, the online services approach and another approach called Software Plus. The notion is to help customers and partners deliver any way they want. It is about customer choice,” he said.
Hausman admitted that the timing of this announcement had to do with the increased demand for online services in a SAAS model and that bandwidth performance has improved.
“People now understand that they are able to run a business application as an online service and so why not other IT infrastructure,” he said.