AVG LiveKive aka SpiderOak Reviewed

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Matt Smollinger

AVG LiveKive and its cousin, SpiderOak
Really AVG? That’s the best you could do?

I originally had planned on reviewing AVG’s new storage product, AVG LiveKive. When it finally entered open beta two weeks ago (over a month after AVG said it would), I placed it into the queue and it was slated to be posted today.

Many larger software companies haven’t taken the time to truely invest in the cloud. The closest so far has been Acronis with its Online Backup, which I suspect was developed by someone else and rebadged by Acronis. Some have taken the path like TrendMicro through acquisition of smaller companies who did the initial design.

AVG appears to have taken a similar route. In August of 2010, Spideroak announced an Open License deal that would allow bulk licensing of its service for resale. AVG appears to have taken advantage of this and has basically rebadged Spideroak’s client for its new LiveKive product.

What clued me in was LiveKive’s use of a "Roomkey". No other product I’ve run across uses that term, since it’s just another name for “password” and was one of the items I dinged SpiderOak on in that review.

AVG hasn’t done much to rebadge the Spideroak client, either. Just take a look at the two screen shots above. AVG even used the same color scheme for the bullets on the page. I guess the upside is that SpiderOak, which is a decent product (check out the review link above), is now going to bring in some additional revenue from AVG customers who don’t know the difference.

So I guess the April Fools joke is on us this year. Thank you AVG, for taking the easy way out. I’ll give my money to someone who’s actually being innovative.

What I’d really like to know is how AVG managed to miss the beta launch by a month if they aren’t actually doing anything special with the client?

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