EMC’s online data backup service product, Mozy, has been chosen by Lenovo for its ThinkPad Notebook range.

The new Lenovo Online Data Backup service powered by EMC Mozy is available as a free 90-day trial with up to five Gbytes of storage with the purchase of selected notebooks.

Australia’s large number of small businesses will benefit from ThinkPad notebooks backed up with the online service, claimed Gary Cox, director of services A/NZ at EMC.

“Australia has a larger number of small businesses – compared to other countries. The Lenovo deal specifically targets small businesses.” he said.

According to Cox the enterprise storage vendor’s “appetite” for the SMB market was originally ignited by the purchase of Dantz Retrospect in 2006.

He told CRN the vendor further cemented itself in the consumer/SMB market with the purchase of Iomega in April and SaaS backup product – Mozy - in October 2007.

“There’s huge potential for both EMC and our channel partners in this market,” said Cox.

“Small businesses don’t have the resources and capability to keep up with data back-up. They end up investing all their confidence in the product supplier.”

Cox said the deal with Lenovo gives reseller customer’s a subscription based storage model storage, with pricing to be based on the number of Gbyte or terabytes an end user wants.

Australian pricing for the subscription based service was still in the process of being finalised, he claimed.