Michael Lawson (Movebot)
A new Christchurch tech company has designed and launched a cloud migration tool, Movebot, which it says can shift massive amounts of data safely and quickly between cloud storage providers.
Movebot, which was conceived during the COVID-19 lockdown and developed under the leadership of Michael Lawson, migrates cloud data from one storage provider to another, regardless how big the load is.
Lawson said that over time, teams and individuals can create and keep gigabytes or terabytes of data such as documents, photos, music and videos on their own computers or servers but often saved in the cloud with one of the many cloud providers.
“Movebot is that safe pair of hands that takes care of all the heavy lifting for our clients," he said.
“So, when they decide they need to move from one provider to another, such as Dropbox to Google Drive, Movebot can do the work four times cheaper than established providers."
Lawson was also the co-founder of internet safety applications Linewize, which was sold to Australian cyber safety vendor Family Zone in a deal worth $16.5 million in 2017.
Moving large amounts of data is not that simple and takes weeks or months depending on the volume and resources available, Lawson said.
While the recognised cloud platforms are safe, moving data between them can be risky if the user makes a mistake in the process.
“Movebot enables companies to choose the best cloud platform for their needs and move between them, when they need to.
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“Data sovereignty and privacy is a big issue these days, Movebot has invested in infrastructure in safe countries such as the US, the UK, Canada, Singapore and Australia.
"Unfortunately, New Zealand does not have any real cloud computing tech. Microsoft is planning to, but it will take some time to come to fruition."
Lawson said Movebot already has customers in the US, Canada and the UK but is particularly interested in New Zealand and Australia.
Movebot is powered by another platform developed by Lawson and his team called Couchdrop, a secure cloud upload server.
