Google's Mythical GDrive Surfaces Once Again: Will It Bring Cloud Storage to the Mainstream?
At this point, most signs point toward Google releasing its rumored GDrive in the near future. In many ways, this mythical GDrive is simply the missing puzzle piece in Google's online strategy. While Google offers a number of online services with a storage component, it still doesn't offer a unified storage solution that brings Gmail, Picasa Web Albums, and Google Docs together.
Why it Matters: Bringing Cloud Storage to the Mainstream
You can already store your photos on Picasa Web Albums (though the amount of free storage is very limited). However, once you pay Google, your Gmail storage and Picasa storage limits become one - so Google clearly has at least some unified infrastructure for doing some of the back-end work in place already. According to a document (PDF) unearthed by Google is Watching You, that is exactly what Google is planning to do with the GDrive.
Google has enough clout to take online storage mainstream. While this directly benefits Google, it will also benefit the cloud storage industry in general, as the big name behind the product will drive up the general comfort level with online storage.
There are, of course, numerous small and medium sized-companies that offer online storage in some form or another. The smartest ones integrate directly with your desktop, so that you can seamlessly move data between the cloud and your own machine. A large number of other services also offer backup services, though without directly integrating this with your desktop. While all of these offerings are interesting, none have really made it into the mainstream yet.
What the GDrive is Up Against
Google's biggest competitor in this business is most likely going to be Microsoft, which has just started its push for cloud computing and storage. With its Live Drive, Microsoft offers 25GB of storage to all of its millions of Windows Live users. But Microsoft wouldn't be Microsoft if it didn't also offer ten different online storage solutions that can't speak to each other. You can also use LiveSync to transfer data between your own computers, Live Mesh for syncing and online storage, and Office Live Workspace for managing and storing office documents. And these are just Microsoft's consumer products in this space.
If Google gets the GDrive right, it will be able to offer one single online storage solution that does all of what Microsoft's plethora of tools does, but through one unified user interface and service. If the descriptions of the GDrive that have surfaced over the last week turn out to be true, then Google wants to offer a solution for all your files, including documents, photos, and (interestingly) music.
If Google can also offer solutions to access these files on mobile phones (besides Android) and if it offers a good integration with the desktop, then it could surely become the company that takes cloud storage into the mainstream.
Now we just have to wait for the actual release of the GDrive...
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Would definitely be a nice alternative over the in-house file server which is constantly "running out of space" and "is never backed up" due to "don't you know what you're doing???"
(Actually, wait a sec...this might put me out of a job!! I wonder if the NPS is hiring for park rangers?)
It'd be a huge value add. Are we thinking this would be added as another free tool?
Is Google "mainstream" in the apps game? I know my non-tech friends don't have Gmail addresses...none of them. I've always found that telling...
www.getdropbox.com
Its already live, it offers 2GB for free 50Gb paid and the software is fantastic.
I just noticed you made no mention of it.
what's the difference between this an Microsoft's SkyDrive?
Well, the great thing about Live Mesh is that it supports both online and offline scenario's and that you can easilly program against it. This allows others to integrate it with their platforms and software. Hope google takes a good look at this model
WHAT?
first you call it live drive instead of skydrive and then you say that Skydrive has not already made online file storage mainstream?.
it is usable in over 30 countries and i bet it must have as many users as all the 9 other online storage services out of a TOP TEN in this space put together.
The only thing limiting skydrive is that Microsoft has been caution with the file limit. but the only thing they need to do when gDrive launches is to raise the file limit. they already got no competition in terms of scale.
they con file sync with live sync, they got Live Mesh as a cloud platform that can share and sync files, the got synctoy for a on request desktop use scenarios and they got Windows Azure as what will power it all.
Where is exactly the competition for skydrive now?. where is is in the future?. the only thing that can compete with it will be indeed gDrive but it is going to be extremely difficult they are able to win on this one.
Even Yahoo just announced they are done with briefcase, other storage startup have recently cracked and AOL was unable to handle Xdrive and now they don`t know what to do with it..
A simple research in the history of this space would reveal that over 30 online storage start up have failed in the last 2 years. online storage and file sync must be the hardest combination in a service as it scales.
the only great services out there that can be proved as thing that have lasted and should last in the long run are:
1.-Box
2.-Dropbox
3.-syncplicity
all the other once bigger competitors in this space are now dead:
mediamax, divshare, briefcase, xdrive are the first examples that come to mind.
Aha, when I first heard about Microsoft`s Skydrive, I thought "25 Gb for free - that is what I need!". But after I`ve logged in it, it turned completely useless for me: overwhelmed UI, 50 Mb file limit, 5 files at a time? No way! Waiting for Gdrive, while using dropbox.