Tuesday, March 21, 2006
More User Q&A
Q: What’s the deal – is ElephantDrive really free? Are you going to try to jack up the prices once my data is stored? What if I decide I don’t want to pay?
A: ElephantDrive is free, for now. We are temporarily offering the service without cost to the user in the hopes of getting useful feedback and making it a better product.
ElephantDrive will ultimately be supported by subscription fees. We aren’t trying to give the impression that ElephantDrive will be free forever, especially for large amounts of storage – we may, however, support smaller amounts for free on an ongoing basis.
Pricing isn’t yet finalized, but you may rest assured it will be competitive – that is, as good or better than existing offerings. In addition to providing the best software product possible, we are engineering our systems to be “storage agnostic” so we can easily utilize the cheapest storage available that is still reliable and redundant. As we find cost savings, we will pass them on to our subscribers.
If you do decide to participate but don’t want to continue as a paid subscriber after the end of the beta, we will maintain your data for at least 90 days and give you the opportunity to download or restore it.
Q: My data is precious – how do I know that ElephantDrive will be around to protect it?
A: We agree – your data is precious. It’s why we developed ElephantDrive. We’ve constructed a business model and technology platform that will provide security and access for your data because it is so important.
We know that the success of ElephantDrive hinges on our ability to plan ahead for every possible contingency, especially the unpleasant ones. Every decision we make considers the worst-case scenario. As a result, we have structured our software and storage systems on the assumption that anything that can go wrong, will. Our business model and financial backing are based on the assumptions, consequently we can say…
… We can’t guarantee with 100% certainty that this business will be successful. But we can guarantee that in the unlikely event we are forced to discontinue service, ElephantDrive Customer Support will ensure that you will be able to retrieve your data in a timely manner.
A: ElephantDrive is free, for now. We are temporarily offering the service without cost to the user in the hopes of getting useful feedback and making it a better product.
ElephantDrive will ultimately be supported by subscription fees. We aren’t trying to give the impression that ElephantDrive will be free forever, especially for large amounts of storage – we may, however, support smaller amounts for free on an ongoing basis.
Pricing isn’t yet finalized, but you may rest assured it will be competitive – that is, as good or better than existing offerings. In addition to providing the best software product possible, we are engineering our systems to be “storage agnostic” so we can easily utilize the cheapest storage available that is still reliable and redundant. As we find cost savings, we will pass them on to our subscribers.
If you do decide to participate but don’t want to continue as a paid subscriber after the end of the beta, we will maintain your data for at least 90 days and give you the opportunity to download or restore it.
Q: My data is precious – how do I know that ElephantDrive will be around to protect it?
A: We agree – your data is precious. It’s why we developed ElephantDrive. We’ve constructed a business model and technology platform that will provide security and access for your data because it is so important.
We know that the success of ElephantDrive hinges on our ability to plan ahead for every possible contingency, especially the unpleasant ones. Every decision we make considers the worst-case scenario. As a result, we have structured our software and storage systems on the assumption that anything that can go wrong, will. Our business model and financial backing are based on the assumptions, consequently we can say…
… We can’t guarantee with 100% certainty that this business will be successful. But we can guarantee that in the unlikely event we are forced to discontinue service, ElephantDrive Customer Support will ensure that you will be able to retrieve your data in a timely manner.
