Cancel Anytime with One Click? Slide’s Backup Solution Calls Out the Industry’s Biggest Flaws

At the Right of Boom cybersecurity conference in Las Vegas, former Datto founders Austin McChord and Michael Fass introduced their new venture, Slide, a backup and disaster recovery appliance designed for managed service providers. McChord emphasized that their entry-level appliance, which is slightly larger than an Apple Mac Studio, can store up to 16 terabytes of data and operates at a speed that can saturate a ten-gigabit network connection. He stated that its CPU is fifty percent faster than a thirteen thousand dollar data appliance, and its flash-based storage is one hundred times faster than most market solutions, providing instantaneous cloud restores. The founders aim to recreate the culture of connection and support that contributed to Datto’s success, committing to a partnership approach with their clients. Users can easily cancel their service via a single button click, reflecting a customer-centric philosophy. Slide features an open and free application programming interface, allowing for integrations with various vendors.

In an interview with CRN, McChord highlighted the outdated nature of current market offerings, stating, “When you look at the MSP solutions on the market today, they’re practically ancient.”

Why do we care?

Let me take you on an analysis journey.    My first take was “an appliance?   In 2025? And a … backup solution?  Is Austin going back to the well.. because he can?”.     His comment about solutions being ancient, however, did resonate with me – there is a lot of very old technology bouncing around the MSP space. My second consideration was… comments about ease of use.   Speed of development.   Implementing features users request.  

But let’s be clear.  This is not innovation.   The fact that this is NOT table stakes of product development is frankly a damning indictment of technology product development as a whole.  Serving customers with basic respect shouldn’t be considered novel.  It shouldn’t be considered distruptive.    Going back in time to a glorious age when technology worked for users is … pathetic. 

The fact that a button to remove the product is considered a novel feature should be terrifying to the community.    If canceling service with a button click is revolutionary, what does that say about the rest of the industry? I hope Slide is wildly successful.    Why?  Because this should be the basic expectation of product teams.      The technology market is dominated by large, slow-moving players who focus on squeezing providers and customers rather than innovating.   If this is what passes as innovation, the industry is long overdue for a reckoning.