Hybrid backup and recovery solutions provider Carbonite (CARB) pulled back the curtain on its new Carbonite Appliance HT10 June 18, effectively launching the channel’s first hybrid backup solution designed specifically for small businesses. With the release of the HT10, Carbonite also is ushering in the first product in its new disaster recovery-as-a-service (DRaaS) portfolio, as the company looks to expand its business from enterprise backup to full-on recovery within the next year.

With the Carbonite Appliance HT10, small-business owners will be able to deploy the company’s solution quickly and easily to provide centrally managed local and cloud data backup to their small-business customers, according to Dave Maffei, the vice president of Global Channel sales at Carbonite. With its new backup solution, Carbonite is also giving full management control to the channel partner, essentially allowing them to strengthen their relationships with the end user and increase their overall revenue.

“This is a massive game-changer for us,” said Maffei in an interview with The VAR Guy. “From our perspective, the Carbonite Appliance is one big all-in-one solution that will allow our partners to deliver a sort of business continuity for what these small businesses need to continue to operate.”

Carbonite is marketing the HT10 as a cost-effective and easy to deploy solution to allow small businesses to centrally manage their local and cloud backup data for their customers. The appliance is available only through Carbonite's channel partners, enabling them to "own" the customer relationship, the company noted. In addition, the HT10 was designed to be easy to deploy and to utilize in case of a data loss, with users able to fully recover their systems using bare metal recovery.

“We’re targeting small and medium businesses. We see a massive hole in the appliance-based market and the hybrid market to deliver a product that has the tight amount of functionality and the right amount of scale with enterprise-level capabilities but designed at a price and implementation point that works for small and medium-sized businesses," Maffei said.

Because of the HT10’s placement as a channel-only product, Carbonite will not be listing the price for the appliance on its website, to give partners the ability to set their own pricing. Maffei emphasized that Carbonite will continue to expand its disaster recovery and SMB solutions over the next year.

“This appliance is sort of our toe in the water to a different line of solutions,” said Maffei. “Carbonite has always been known as a backup company, and we’re starting to make that transition from being a backup company to being a business continuity company or disaster-based recovery company. The underlying premise is that we want to keep your business up and running, not just to get your data back. “

“While this product launch us huge … it's really our first innovation in a new line of thinking about how we’re working with our partners and how we’re allowing them to work with their end users.”