Telling the Backup Story
March 21, 2007
This is one of those "how to market a product effectively" examples that's been kicking around in my brain for a while, I thought I'd share it. About half a decade ago, Microsoft implemented a technology called Volume Shadow Copy, which maintains old versions of your files (or the difference between the current version of a file and its past revisions) so that you can restore past states for a file if it gets corrupted or deleted.
It's a smart, automatic way of doing backup, and takes smart advantage of the fact that disk storage space is so cheap. The user interface for enabling Volume Shadow Copy on a Windows 2003 machine looks something like this:
In the upcoming Leopard version of OS X, Apple has introduced a similar feature. In Apple's case, it's called "Time Machine" instead of "Volume Shadow Copy". And while I strongly recommend that you check out the Apple's own marketing for the feature, you can probably tell the whole story from the screenshot of Apple's implementation of the same feature:
Now, the whole starry-background thing is way over the top, to the point that it's off-putting. But Apple will get credit for innovation for a feature that Microsoft shipped almost half a decade ago. And they'll deserve it.
11:34 AM
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Well, technically, the first time that MS has made shadow copy available in a consumer-oriented product was with Vista, right? I mean, having a feature in Windows Server 2000 or 2003 is not quite a direct analog to Apple (or anybody else) releasing as part of a consumer OS, with a consumer interface, instead of a geeked-out UI.
But other than that, yeah, I agree.
This is grt info, its sometimes tough to believe MS being early mover then Apple!
But the good part is Shadow Copy and Time Machine both are Awesome for prosumers....and will help Mac and PC users worldwide big time....
have you or anyone chkd
http://IndyChai.com
from there PC / Mac its out of the world ;)
Probably one of the few new features actually useful in Vista (Business and up only), now called Previous VersionTM.
Why exactly will Apple deserve the credit for innovation in this case?
Why exactly will Apple deserve the credit for innovation in this case?
Good question, Frank, and I appreciate that it's asked in an honest tone since you've got a dog in this fight. Put simply, an innovation isn't really an innovation, in my opinion, unless it's presented in a form that is possible for its intended audience to experience. That requires a combination of thoughtful product design and appropriate promotion and marketing and messaging.
I genuinely sympathize with the team that created this great technology and then got saddled with an uninspiring name and some truly inexplicable packaging and product decisions that left it to, essentially, gather dust for half a decade until someone else gets credit. That's clearly the fault of a broken process. But I don't begrudge the fact that there is going to be a lot of praise for Time Machine that will neglect to mention Windows' earlier version of a very similar feature.
It's not fair to complain that people didn't notice your feature when it was hidden away on an obscure tab under a downright scary name.
Thanks, Anil. Innovation is such an interesting concept and is defined so many different ways it's sometimes hard to have a conversation about it. I sometimes think there are at least two kinds of innovation -- the "aha" kind where there is something totally new created (the first airplane, for example) and then the more gradual kind -- where in the same example the plane goes from one engine to two, better design, jets, etc. On a scale, the leap from balloon to plane is probably less of a jump than from plane to jet, but that first leap is what people generlaly look to as innovation. In this case, the innovation that Apple is showing is making something accessible in a new and fresh way -- and there is no doubt that Apple is great at this. The iPod is another example...there were mp3 players out there but none that took the world by storm.
I guess it just drives home the fact that users want usability and style in their tools more than just raw functionality. After all, its bad enough we have to work all day, but does it have to feel like work too? :)
Volume shadow copy is also available in XP. However the interface is missing. So essentially it might as well not be there unless you are building backup software.
I totally agree with the conclusion. Unless the feature is marketed so it gets used and benefits the consumer it might as well not exist. Penicillin certainly was discovered long before it was actually discovered to be useful in killing bacteria. All the credit goes to the person that discovered its usefulness and communicated that effectively.
Volume Shadow Copy is not a Microsoft innovation. It is licensed from Seagate/Veritas, who created it as a part of their own backup products.