At Dreamforce 2021, Salesforce announced its plan to launch “Backup and Restore”, their new backup and recovery product. Since the news broke, there’s been a lot of discussion across the Salesforce ecosystem about what this means for partners that currently provide backup and recovery solutions, like Own. To that end, I wanted to share my thoughts.
First, the news didn’t come as a surprise. We have a strong partnership and great relationships throughout Salesforce that go back many years, not to mention the fact that Salesforce Ventures continues to be one of our most significant investors. Because of this, we've been in discussions with them about their intentions for many months, and have had several opportunities to preview their solution and their messaging.
One thing I believe everyone agrees on is that the risk of data loss is real. As Salesforce affirmed in their announcement, bad things can and do happen to SaaS data all the time, including cyberattacks like ransomware, accidental loss and corruption due to human error, and rare but disruptive events like service outages. That’s why it’s incumbent upon the customer to take a proactive approach to protecting their data.
It also confirms that Salesforce recognizes its legacy backup offerings like Weekly Export, Data Export, and Data Recovery Service aren’t sufficient. Once again, we’re in complete agreement.
However, when it comes to how data is best protected, I believe there are some clear differences to be considered.
Over the last six years, we’ve had the opportunity to work with nearly 4,000 Salesforce customers, helping them recover from data incidents tens of thousands of times. Time and again, those customers have turned to us not only because native Salesforce backup solutions didn’t meet their needs, but because they place extreme value on having independent access to their data no matter what. This reduces the risk of disruption should Salesforce suffer an outage and provides a safe haven should something unthinkable like a ransomware attack occur.
Now, Salesforce is asking its customers to cede complete control over their data with an on-platform solution. That’s like storing your only set of spare car keys in your glove compartment in case you get locked out. It just doesn’t make sense.
Customers also choose to do business with Own because they trust us. I know this is something Salesforce holds dear as well, but when it comes to data protection, that trust has to be earned. Our team and our solution have been put to the test with data incidents ranging from small to catastrophic and each time we’ve delivered. When the pressure is on, our customers know without question Own is there for them with a proven solution that they can trust.
That’s why we’re the top-rated solution for backup and recovery on the Salesforce AppExchange with nearly 400 five-star reviews, the #1 rated solution on G2, and why we’ve doubled our revenue year-over-year since inception. It’s also why Salesforce themselves continue to invest in us.
Finally, backup and recovery is just one aspect of a holistic data protection strategy. The dramatic increase in volume, velocity and variety of data are making it more difficult to protect it. It’s why we acquired RevCult to help customers efficiently manage access to sensitive data and proactively prevent data loss. With our expanded offerings, admins, DevOps and InfoSec can efficiently collaborate on securing data as its brought into production, backed up, archived and seeded in sandboxes.
So what does this all mean for Own, and the industry, going forward? I believe that a rising tide lifts all ships, and that Salesforce’s backup product will only help elevate the criticality of proactive data protection. With that said, Salesforce customers have made it clear about what they expect from a data protection solution, and I am confident that we will continue to be the trusted partner of choice for companies around the world.
We look forward to continuing our mission to ensure that no company operating in the cloud ever loses data.
