Pay attention to backups

Home PCs and laptops storing the ever-changing data, photos, video and music of consumers’ digital lives are backed up by most users less than once a month, according to a new survey of the backup habits of home users conducted by Acronis. The online survey of 5,964 home users in North America found that 87 percent of users back up their hard drives just every two to three months or less frequently — far less often than any industry organization or publication recommends. This number is in sharp contrast with another survey finding — 80 percent of users have lost information saved on their PCs.

With consumers storing increasing amounts of critical data, those computers must be backed up more often to prevent the kind of catastrophic loss caused by hard disk failure, viruses and malware, unstable software downloads, user errors or physical disaster. According to Robert Thaler, senior director, Marketing, Acronis, users must evaluate their unique situations and create backup schedules that match the importance of the data. Well-advised users back up their computers every week or two, with more frequent backups necessary if information changes frequently and is irreplaceable.

“Today, we rely on our laptops and desktop computers to store so much information — financial data, family records, irreplaceable photos and videos — that we need to treat backup and restore as seriously as we do virus and malware protection and be certain backups are scheduled and run,” said Thaler.

The Acronis survey also found that fully 81 percent of users have had to reinstall their computer operating system and software applications. According to the survey, that data loss comes with a significant loss of time, with 48 percent reporting that the reinstallation process took more than four hours.

“Unfortunately, consumer data loss is more a matter of when, not if — it is inevitable,” said Thaler. “Users should be sure they have full protection in place for their PCs, which means more than just copying files. That’s not disaster recovery. Instead users should back up their operating systems, applications, settings and configurations in addition to photos, spreadsheets and the like.”

Most MEA HCP markets hit

IDC’s research found that the Middle East and Africa (MEA) region has suffered a plunge in hardcopy peripherals (HCP) shipments — such as printers, following the intensification of the global economic crisis in late 2008 and early 2009. IDC’s Middle East and Africa Quarterly HCP Tracker shows that most countries in the region have been hit hard by the downturn, recording considerable year-on-year declines in HCP shipments in Q1 2009.

Shipments of HCP devices to the MEA region fell year on year by more than 600,000 units in Q1 2009, to stand at 1.7 million shipments totaling $492.7 million. While declines were noticeable across all product segments, single-function machines, both copiers and printers, were the worst hit. According to IDC, this trend has been driven by an increase in end-user awareness of the various benefits of multifunctional peripherals (MFPs), which include improved space utilization and convenience, ease of use, increased efficiencies, added functionality, and cost savings — further fueled by the rapid decline in MFP prices.

“Most MEA countries tracked by IDC recorded falling HCP shipments in Q1 2009. Although some countries were more affected by the crisis than others, a few select countries, such as Saudi Arabia and Algeria, actually experienced growth,” said Naser Sha’sha’a, program manager for Imaging and Hardcopy Devices at IDC MEA. “Turkey, however, posted the region’s biggest year-on-year decline in Q1 2009, a continuation of a trend that became noticeable in Q4 2008. The government has quickly implemented various initiatives to curb the downturn, among them a 10 percent reduction in VAT on various consumer products, effective Q2 2009.”

Some vendors have attempted to overcome the challenges presented by the economic downturn by addressing the price-sensitive nature of the region’s market, while others have responded to declining margins and reduced levels of business by adding value to their hardware sales through the provision of services such as fleet management, helpdesk support, device usage monitoring, and consumables replenishment.

“We certainly see the move to consulting and managed services provisions in the HCP market as a positive development,” stated Sha’sha’a. “IDC has been advising vendors and their partners to present such an approach as a major cost-saver for their customers rather than an added expense. The aim should be to optimize the number of devices/brands in the customer site to meet the organization’s various print/copy requirements, while also reducing the total cost of ownership.”

Microsoft gets yucky

Microsoft has launched a dedicated site — www.browserforthebetter.com — to promote its “Better Browser” Internet Explorer 8. One of the more amusing promotional aspects of the site is a series of supposed “public service announcements,” which aim to describe certain features of the Better Browser in a memorable way. One of those videos highlighted a condition called O.M.G.I.G.P., which results when sensitive individuals view unacceptable content previously downloaded by another user through the PC’s browser.

According to the public service announcement, the consequence of this exposure could be an overwhelming need to puke or vomit — which is exactly what happens in the Microsoft video. The suggestion is to use the “private browsing” feature of Internet Explorer 8, which ensures that nothing shocking is left in the browser history. Following a series of complaints about the disgusting nature of the video, Microsoft took it down from their website — but the video remains embarrassingly accessible through www.youtube.com/watch?v=xB9fhjnJcB0.

And in another of Microsoft’s “yucky moments,” it turns out that the new Windows 7 operating system Home Premium Upgrade and Professional Upgrade packages for $49.99 and $99.99 promoted by the Amazon.com software store, are unavailable to consumers in the Middle East. Even though these prices represent a savings of at least fifty percent from the suggested retail price, and Amazon does do business with consumers in the Middle East, Microsoft has restricted the offer to consumers who pre-order the operating system in the US, Canada, Japan, UK, Germany and France. Now that should really cause Saudi consumers to suffer from O.M.G.I.G.P.