Geek Patrol Offers Online Backup Service

The Geek Patrol, Norfolk, Va., is the most recent IT and networking support service for homes and small businesses to start reselling the Data Deposit Box service from Toronto-based Acpana Business Systems.

Data Deposit Box is a turnkey, online data backup program that offers secure backing up of data to a protected off-site location. London, Ontario-based Nerds on Site began reselling the service earlier this year.

Outfits like The Geek Patrol and Nerds on Site can offer such services starting at 1 cent per megabyte per month for the first gigabyte, and 0.3 cents per megabyte after the first gigabyte, said Peter Carroll, CTO of Acpana.

Customers who sign up for Data Deposit Box pay only for the actual capacity they use, with no extra per-PC prices, Carroll said. "So customers can now back up all the other things they should be backing up," he said.

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Most customers are small businesses, SOHOs and sole proprietors, Carroll said. Others are home users, most of whom run businesses from home.

The Geek Patrol is taking part in Acpana's Powered By DDB Partner program, which gives them the use of a co-branded logo, first-level customer support, access to the Data Deposit Box hosted site and customer billing handled by Acpana. The Geeks also get a 25 percent commission on customers' monthly fees, paid to their credit cards, for as long as a customer remains part of the program.

Acpana also has a basic reseller program in which the company provides hosting and customer support. It also pays a 15 percent commission to the integrator, Carroll said.