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CEO David Friend and CTO Jeff Flowers founded Carbonite in 2005, the fifth joint venture for the pair who also together founded Computer Pictures, Pilot Software, FaxNet and Sonexis. Friend had also been an executive at ARP Instruments, Inc., a pioneering electronic music synthesizer manufacturer, in the 1970s.
The product debuted at Staples in 2006 when it focused on photo backup and offered a free six-month subscription with all camera purchases. It partnered with Microsoft in 2006 to include the program with purchase of Microsoft Money 2007, and renewed the following year for the 2008 edition. Since its launch in 2006, Carbonite has backed up more than 100 billion files and has restored more than 7 billion lost files for its customers.
In 2007 it was named ‘Top Private Company’ by AlwaysOn in 2007.
Carbonite introduced their Macintosh version for Intel-based Macs with OS 10.4 or 10.5 in March 2009.
It has partnered with several other backup, storage, and file transfer companies: with Ipswitch, Inc. in 2007 to provide the service to purchasers of their FTP client, OLBEX in 2007 to offer the service to U.S. cable companies, Sonic Solutions in 2008 to provide core technologies for their digital media storage solution, and with TDS Telecom in 2008 to provide core technologies for their online backup service, and with LaCie in 2008, to power their online backup. It partnered with Lifeboat Distribution in 2008, to enhance distribution coverage within North America.
It partnered with Packard Bell in 2008, the first partnership between an independent online backup company and major PC manufacturer, providing all purchasers of their desktop and notepad computers in Europe a free four-month subscription. It subsequently partnered also with Lenovo in 2008, to have the service pre-loaded on their PCs, and with Acer to have their online backup service pre-installed on select PCs. Acer signed on for a similar arrangement in 2009.
In 2009, it admitted loss of backups of "over 7,500 customers" in a lawsuit filed against Promise Technology, a hardware provider.
On June 6, 2011, Carbonite acquired Phanfare. Carbonite declined to honor Phanfare lifetime memberships, instead granting lifetime members $299 in Phanfare credit which would expire after three years if unused. Two days later, Phanfare founder and CEO, Andrew Erlichson notified lifetime subscribers that customers requesting a refund will be paid not by Carbonite, but what remains of Phanfare, Inc.
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In 2017, Carbonite acquired Mozy, a cloud-based backup solution from Dell Technologies for $145.8 million.
In 2019, Carbonite acquired Webroot, which delivers multi-vector Cybersecurity protection for endpoints and networks, as well as threat intelligence services to protect businesses and individuals for $618.5 million.
On November 11, 2019, Open Text Corporation announced it had signed a definitive agreement to acquire Carbonite Inc. for $23.00 per share USD in cash.
From Wikipedia’s article on Carbonite, Inc., shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.7