CodeLathe Launches Tonido Private Cloud Storage Service For Business

CodeLathe's new Tonido Cloud lets businesses use either their own storage infrastructure or such cloud infrastructures as Amazon S3 or OpenStack to provide remote file access, synchronization, and sharing to their users either inside the office or remotely, said Madhan Kanagavel, CEO of the Austin, Texas-based company.

The Tonido Cloud is priced starting at $2.50 per user per month, or $24.99 for a year, regardless of how much capacity is stored or how much bandwidth is used to download or upload data, Kanagavel said.

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"The customer pays the fee and gets the license, maintenance and support, all for a single price," he said. "We can do this because the customer owns the infrastructure."

A 50-user company might be able to set up a single Linux-based server to handle the private cloud storage requirements of its employees, whereas a large enterprise could us a scalable SAN infrastructure on the backend, Kanagavel said.

"Our software, once it's installed and set up, gives users the functionality of Dropbox or Google Drive," he said. "But it's hosted in the company's own infrastructure. Companies keep control of their data."

That's an important differentiator from offerings like Dropbox or Google Drive, Kanagavel said.

"A lot of companies, and the people inside these companies, are looking for solutions for file access and synchronization and are turning to Dropbox or Google Drive," he said. "And that's OK for some companies. But, for companies where the regulations say they can't store data on third-party services, or where the government regulates how data is stored, companies are looking for a solution to make it easy for users outside and inside the company to safely access files."

The new Tonido Cloud private cloud storage service was developed from CodeLathe's original consumer-focused Tonido Personal Cloud software that allowed users to remotely access data on their home PCs via mobile devices. That service has been available for about four years, Kanagavel said.

CodeLathe has no desire to build a direct sales organization, and so is in the process of building an indirect sales channel, Kanagavel said. The company is currently recruiting solution providers, systems integrators, and service providers with an offer of recurring revenue in addition to any services revenue they receive from helping customers set up the service, he said.

"We are working with a lot of customers, which would be a big resource drain if we tried to handle it directly," he said. "We'd like our partners to play that role."

PUBLISHED SEPT. 19, 2012