Corporations aren't jumping on the backup services bandwagon for remote users, says Will Norris, president at BackupUSA, New Orleans, LA, which offers Web-based backup to individuals and corporate clients.

Which is a shame, seeing that so few companies have comprehensive disaster recovery plans. Too often, the disaster recovery plan is "the last man out of the building grabs the tapes," Norris says.

Doug Chandler, storage analyst at IDC doesn't foresee much growt...

But for remote employees with high-speed access, backing up to a service provider "could be useful," Chandler says.

On the other hand, users with dial-up connections might find backing up over the Internet too slow.

Storing corporate data in a third-party data center, too, remains a major concern for companies considering outsourced backup. But "as companies become more comfortable with security issues," Chandler says, market acceptance could increase.