As a quick background, we're an organization that runs centralized backups for about 30 servers and 300+ users. We've used Retrospect Windows and Mac versions for almost a decade, as well as Backup Exec before that.

We are (still) desperate to replace Retrospect with something else because of some silly bugs and lack of features that make backup monitoring an extreme pain in our environment, and BRU seemed like a possible replacement. Our first contact with development/support in the April/May 2004 timeframe was nothing less than spectacular, and we had very high hopes for the product. Unfortunately, as we gained more experience with the app, and even purchased it, we discovered that it was lacking in extremely critical ways, including technical, customer-service, and general backup philosophy.

While many people can probably get good backups with BRU in small scenarios, anyone with enterprise-class needs should look elsewhere, at least for now. The claimed features are there to make BRU a world-class enterprise backup utility, but their implementation is spotty and extremely buggy.

To make things worse, rather than taking our specific, serious, and detailed bug reports and using them to fix and improve the product in the next version (we are valued beta testers for various companies large and small for products on both platforms), the BRU support system fails with the classic "blame it on the user" cop-out, even in the face of specific and overwhelming evidence that the app is at fault. Even more frustrating (if not laughable) is that after the company would strenuously and repeatedly deny that the app was at fault for a series of well-documented and serious bugs, the release notes of a subsequent version would then show that one or two of the exact bugs we reported was fixed. Unfortunately, not enough of the bugs were fixed to consider the product viable, and our fear of the tech support system (which apparently consists of one well-meaning but extremely clueless guy with bad, canned answers) grew with repeated exposure to it, especially for an app that is so extremely mission critical and yet so new and obviously full of bugs and documentation errors.

After a number of these report/deny/partial-fix bug cycles, the company simply stopped responding to our emails and calls. I sent an email with all of the problems we had encountered to Tim Jones, the apparent President of Tolis Group, and his first response was that he would take a look at the problems I mentioned...then there was no response. My follow-up emails and voice-mails to him were greeted with silence.

Six months later, not much has improved, and some of the silly "three-man operation in someone's basement" stuff is still going on with the product.

I sincerely hope that the Tolis Group gets it together and starts listening to their technical users and improves the product to the point where it can really challenge the likes of Retrospect. We're still monitoring BRU's progress and we hope that a version 2.0 might correct some of the most eggegious bugs, and the revenue received from small backup clients (for whom the product apparently works, at least somewhat) will enable the company to someday field a competent and properly staffed support structure. But the "ignore 'em" philosophy of customer service seems to go all the way to the top, so it will take quite a shift in priorities and management style (or perhaps the sale of the product to another company) to make this happen.