With more small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and startups looking to the cloud for their storage needs and more control over syncing folders and files, the cloud storage market is becoming intensely competitive.
To capitalize on this demand, SugarSync recently lowered its storage prices and upped the ante on storage capacity to attract more SMBs as customers. The San Mateo, Calif.-based cloud storage provider launched new business plans and pricing, offering unlimited storage and unlimited users to companies of all sizes, allowing them to scale as needed.
Based on the new pricing plan, SugarSync for Business starts at $550/year, which includes three users. Businesses can add additional users at anytime for an additional $125 per user, again with unlimited storage.
In recent months, SugarSync has seen an uptick in demand for simpler pricing, storage and user allocation options, according to Laura Yecies, CEO of SugarSync, with businesses of all sizes using the company’s storage service to accelerate productivity and collaboration.
“We have witnessed the ultimate example of consumerization of IT over the past year, including tremendous adoption of our service by businesses that are storing more and more data in the cloud each day,” Yecies said in a statement. “We want to allow companies of all sizes and their teams to have the capacity they need at an affordable price, without having to worry about quotas or storage.”
Among some of the features of SugarSync’s new business plan include the following:
· Unlimited Storage – Scalability of capacity to meet the demands of businesses of all sizes.
· Unlimited Users – New support for unlimited seats to meet the needs of large organizations.
· Flexible Sync – Sync any file or folder across any device. Select something to sync and it works automatically in the background.
· Collaboration – Send files of any size from any devices, to anyone. Choose read-only or add/edit permissions.
· File transfers use TLS (SSL 3.3) encryption. Data is stored in multiple carrier-grade (SAS (News - Alert) 70, Type II) data centers using 128-bit AES encryption.
· Mobile Access – No extra charge for unlimited devices. Access files using any Web browser or SugarSync mobile apps for iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, Android (News - Alert), Blackberry, Symbian and Windows Mobile (with Windows Phone coming soon, according to company officials).
However, SugarSync does not include its own suite of apps for editing documents via the Web, as is offered by Microsoft (News - Alert) SkyDrive and Google Drive.
SugarSync is offering a free, 30-day trial to businesses that want to test drive the new service. The company, which launched in 2008, works with brands including Samsung, Lenovo, Fujitsu, SanDisk, France Telecom (News - Alert)-Orange, Korea Telecom and SoftBank, which have partnered with SugarSync to offer cloud services to their customers.
Edited by Amanda Ciccatelli