Online mobile phone retailer Wirefly announced a new mobile backup program that it hopes will not only give its customers piece of mind but keep them coming back to the website more than just every 18 to 24 months when their contract expires.
Andy Zeinfeld, CEO of Simplexity, Wirefly’s parent company, says the new service, which allows users to back up, wirelessly sync any information stored on any phone on any carrier, running any platform, is available for free to anyone, even those who are not current Wirefly customers.
“We’re going to give everybody that comes to Wirefly 2Gigs of memory on our cloud. They’ll be able to back up and use all the systems, without paying a nickel,” Zeinfeld says, noting that users of the service will be allowed to back up up to five devices on Wirefly’s mobile backup service. Unlimited storage will run $5.99 a month.
Zeinfeld says one of the beauties of Wirefly’s backup service is that it’s completely carrier neutral, allowing customers to download their information to any new device regardless of whether that customer is switching carriers.
While he admits that the service won’t be especially popular with carriers, which are increasingly trying to take control of user’s information as a way of creating stickiness, Zeinfeld says the new service is right in line with Wirefly’s direct-to-consumer mobile retail business.
Zeinfeld says stickiness is just as important to a company like Wirefly as it is to a carrier. “I want people to use our service as their everyday portal,” he says.
Wirefly worked for seven months on developing the software with a company called Spare Backup. Zeinfeld says over the next few months, the company will add more features, such as a security suite that will include remote wipe, as well integration of social networks.
