Below are my attempts to contact Macrium and get a few questions answered straight from the horses mouth. I'm a fairly patient guy, but when asking direct questions and having each and every single one of them ignored, I get a bit peeved.
Email #1, read the bottom for my original message for Macrium and then their response.
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Hi Klaus,
Thanks for contacting us.
I am afraid I can not offer a comparison with Acronis. However, I can reassure you that we take pride in our product and work tirelessly to ensure that imperfections and bugs are fixed as soon as we find them. We also have a dedicated team of software developers who offer support rather than an overseas call centre.
You are welcome to trial any of our software offerings here:
http://www.macrium.com/pages/downloads.aspx
Kind regards
Jon Dittman - Macrium Support
[email protected]
________________
Macrium™ Software is a trading name of Paramount Software UK Ltd, Registered in England and Wales Number 02973414 Registered Office: Kilburn House, Manchester Science Park, Lloyd St. North, Manchester M15 6SE United Kingdom
The information contained in this e-mail is confidential, privileged, or otherwise protected from disclosure. It is intended only for the use of the authorized individual as indicated in the e-mail. Any unauthorized disclosure, copying, distribution or taking of any action based on the contents of this material is strictly prohibited.
If you have received this e-mail in error, please delete it immediately.
-----Original Message-----
From: "[email protected]" <[email protected]>
Reply-To: [email protected]
Date: 25 Feb 2013 23:34:51 +0000
To: "[email protected]" <[email protected]>
Subject: Macrium vs Acronis
>Name: Klaus Welch
>
>Message:
>
>Hi, I am currently using Acronis as my backup solution. However, recently I've been turned onto your program by Scott Wattson from Techreport.com. I was curious if someone would be willing to contact me and give me and honest blow by blow comparison of Macrium to Acronis. There is a client of mine who is on the edge of purchasing backup software for their server and I'd like to make an informed decision. I realize that price is an obvious selling point for Macrium compared to Acronis.
Email #2, apparently the first sales guy couldn't respond and someone else did... no continuity.
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Hi Klaus
Thanks for getting back.
You can download a trial version of Macrium Reflect Server Edition from here:
http://www.macrium.com/pages/downloads.aspx
Please select 'Server' in the drop-down box in the download manager. The trial is fully functional except for the Windows boot menu option and Macrium Server ReDeploy to redeploy images to dissimilar PC hardware.
Kind regards
Nick Sills - Macrium Support
[email protected]
________________
Macrium™ Software is a trading name of Paramount Software UK Ltd, Registered in England and Wales Number 02973414 Registered Office: Kilburn House, Manchester Science Park, Lloyd St. North, Manchester M15 6SE United Kingdom
The information contained in this e-mail is confidential, privileged, or otherwise protected from disclosure. It is intended only for the use of the authorized individual as indicated in the e-mail. Any unauthorized disclosure, copying, distribution or taking of any action based on the contents of this material is strictly prohibited.
If you have received this e-mail in error, please delete it immediately.
-----Original Message-----
From: "I.T. Guy - Klaus Welch" <[email protected]>
Reply-To: "I.T. Guy - Klaus Welch" <[email protected]>
Date: Fri, 1 Mar 2013 13:44:37 -0900
To: "'Macrium Support'" <[email protected]>
Subject: RE: (Case 26199) Macrium vs Acronis
>Hello Jon, thanks for your reply. However, I was hoping for a bit more
>regarding the response. I have been using Acronis for a good number of
>years, and for the most part been fairly happy (minus some of their
>Advanced Workstation network backup shortfalls). I currently have well
>over 250+ machines being backed up using Acronis and while it works
>great, its quiet expensive, especially for the server software. Your
>software comes in at a much cheaper price, so of course I'm a bit
>hesitant to switch from something I know that works, to a less
>expensive option. Because I'm unable to truly "Test" out a demo
>version of your software on a live server environment, I was hoping to
>be given a quick rundown on what I can expect and not expect when in comparison to Acronis. Other than price, WHY Macrium?
>
>I will say that I have gotten overseas tech support with Acronis, and
>the majority of them were terrible minus one guy who really knew his
>stuff. I noticed you are a UK based company, and as such your hours
>are completely different from mine, how would that affect support that
>I receive. I'm in Alaska, which is 1 hour earlier than California's
>time. It would seem to me that a time difference this large would
>cause some headaches if I needed support.
>
>Either way, I guess I'm just really trying to give Macrium a shot, but
>I'd like to know that its a equivalent or better than the software I'm using.
>Thanks for your time Jon.
Email #3 - 30 minutes after #2, he responds with additional information, none of which answers my questions. The first response looked to be a canned one from what I can tell.
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Hi Klaus
Thanks for getting back.
The majority of our customers are US based and we generally reply to emails from all time zones within a few hours, many times much quicker.
Macrium ReDeploy is a very dependable product. To use the ReDeploy functionality of Macrium Reflect it is necessary to purchase the product. Please note that we offer an unconditional 30 day money back guarantee should you be dissatisfied with your purchase for any reason.
Kind regards
Nick Sills - Macrium Support
[email protected]
So out of all of this, I get the distinct feeling that these guys want nothing to do with someone until they purchase software from them. Ok you respond to emails quickly, but can't give a specific hours for my timezone? What about phone support, is that not even an option? Glad to hear you say its reliable, but your a sales guy, I expect to hear that from you. They don't seem to know their product enough to sell me on it? WTF? I don't understand why the majority of companies are like that these days. The main features that I'm concerned with can't even be tested (reDeploy mainly) as I wanted to test out backups from a RAID 5 to a single physical disk as an emergency test (something Acronis does well). You have someone who works in I.T. , who is likely to bring you A LOT OF BUSINESS by recommending your products for a few 100 workstations and all you can do is tell them that you can't explain WHY your solution is superior to your competitor? Sad, just sad.
I'm posting this in hopes that I either had a uniquely rare experience or that someone from Macrium will seek this post out and attempt to make things right by acting like they actual want my business. Unfortunately, it most likely will be too late for some of my purchases that are on a deadline and will go to Acronis, oh well.
NOTE: I have downloaded and tested Macrium reflect pro on a workstation, looks good but still can't test the main reason for purchasing this software (bare metal recovery)
