HP Upline Pulls the Plug on Canada

You might not have know that HP had launched an online backup service called HP Upline. I heard about it through TechCrunch. If you read my blog occasionally you know I am a MozyPro user and that I regularly post information about MozyHome, but I had to try the HP Upline offering to see what it was like. There is some nice features about it. It offers a combination backup service and file sharing service. Kind of a marriage between Mozy and Box.net. I installed the free version on our family PC in the kitchen to try it out. I did not notice any downtime, but that PC is not on very often. I did notice that the software seemed to use a lot of ram compared to Mozy, and the price of an unlimited upload account was similar to Mozy. I might have considered upgrading to HP Upline but this morning I got this email (emphasis mine).

Dear HP Upline Service subscriber, On Thursday, April 17th, HP suspended operation of the HP Upline Service. We fully anticipate that suspension of the Upline Service will be temporary and short in duration, and will notify you when the Upline Service is operational again.

Please accept our sincere apology for this unanticipated interruption of your access to the Upline Service. We appreciate your patience as we launch this new service, and are working hard to minimize inconvenience caused by this service interruption.

If you are a resident of the United States, your subscription will remain in effect and you will be able to continue using the Upline Service for the duration of your subscription period once the Upline Service is operational again. Thank you for your patience, and we look forward to providing you with the HP Upline Service.

If you are not a resident of the United States, we regretfully must inform you that the initial launch of the HP Upline Service was intended for United States residents only. Unfortunately, our filtering tools did not adequately screen for subscribers residing outside of the United States. We thank you for your early adoption of the Upline Service, and look forward to being able to provide the HP Upline Service to you when we launch it in your country of residence. Since the HP Upline Service is presently offered for use within the United States only, we will be discontinuing your current subscription. After we notify you that the Upline Service is operational again, you will have a limited period of time to access and download files that you have uploaded onto the HP Upline Service servers. After that time period, you will no longer have access to your present HP Upline Service account. If you would like to be contacted by us when the HP Upline Service is made available in your country of residence, please send us an email at help@upline.com. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Sincerely, The HP Upline Team

HP Upline has lost me as a customer now permanently. They offer a new service, then forget to filter out Canadians and then they pull the plug on the service for those that did sign up. That is a major screw up on HP’s part. If you are looking for an online backup solution, stay away from HP! They obviously don’t know what they are doing yet. Thanks for nothing HP, just glad I never gave you any money.