When we heard Google was set to launch a cloud-based system called Drive, our pulses began to race at the prospect of its driverless car concept taking to the skies. Alas, that fantasy (also starring Ryan Gosling) will have to stay in our heads for now, as Drive is said to be Google's planned Dropbox-alike cloud storage feature.
The search giant is revving up to launch its own free cloud
system for storing your pictures, videos and files remotely, rather than
on your computer's hard drive, making them accessible to your mobile
devices, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Google signalled the direction it was pointing its motor last year when it unveiled its cloud-only Chromebook operating system -- for use on its fledgling series of Chromebook laptops. While having a bunch of different services aimed at specific storage uses, the search giant has been slow to launch its own take on a
simple, unified cloud storage system for general use, trailing behind the likes
of Apple's iCloud.
Dropbox, which started up in 2007, made approximately $240m in sales last year, attracting 50 million users, and proving clouds really do have a silver lining. The service is free to access for up to 2GB of storage -- for which most people use it -- with a sliding scale of fees kicking in for more space.
Founders Drew Houston and Arash Ferdowski reportedly spurned the advances of Steve Jobs in 2009, who had his 'i' on incorporating the company, before Apple launched iCloud.
True to form, Google is tight-lipped about how much space would be available, any costs, or indeed whether there's any truth in it at all. We'll update this story as soon as we hear anything from them.
Google dropped the ball by entering late into social networking with the underwhelming Google+, but do you think it's boxing clever with Drive? Let us know in the comments or on our Facebook page.
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Jon Hobbs-Smith 9 February, 2012 13:43
"underwhelming" Google+ ?
Anybody who finds Google+ underwhelming hasn't worked out what it can do yet (especially if they think it is "like facebook"). I'm only reading this article because I found it on CNET's own G+ page. Irony....
anonymous 9 February, 2012 15:15
Jon,
I'm not even surprised that he made that little jab at Google+...CNET writers have been doing that for a long time. It's pretty sad. Most of them, if you take a look at their profile pages, don't even interact with people on there so it's no wonder they feel underwhelmed!
Maybe once they start promoting their Google+ page and - shock - using their personal pages, they might actually see how good it is. Until then, I think we have to put up with these pathetic little jabs at Google+ (or stop reading CNET entirely!).
100 million users. I'm only following 250 of them and my stream is buzzing with great content!
anonymous 9 February, 2012 15:51
Lol anonymous and Jon work at google.
anonymous 9 February, 2012 16:01
Well Anon 15:51, I don't know about Jon...but I know I don't work there.
Well done on being so funny though! Is that what you say to everyone who likes a service?
Jon Hobbs-Smith 9 February, 2012 19:47
First of all I don't work for Google (I'd probably earn a hell of a lot more if I did!)
To me, Google+ is more like Twitter than Facebook. I use Facebook to keep in touch with "real life" friends and Google+ for talking to other communities, like the massive photographer community on there and keeping up with news and trending topics. It's even gone some way to replacing Google Reader for me, with elements of Twitter thrown in.
So, to me it's like Twitter, with a much better interface, better media functions and obviously no 140 character limit, which means it's actually useful.
anonymous 9 February, 2012 21:32
Ummm, between Docs, Music Beta and Picasa/G+ Google already has all the of the functionality of Dropbox covered, and then some. The Google Bar unifies all of those services in one place, so saying that Google is late to this market is an intensely ill informed statement for a tech site to make.
anonymous 10 February, 2012 00:19
There's always room in the sky for one more cloud.
anonymous 10 February, 2012 00:23
^^^agreed. I couldn't go any further after reading "But the search giant has been slow to launch its own take on a cloud storage system for general use, trailing behind the likes of Apple's iCloud." What an outrageous statement. Google pioneered consumer cloud computing, especially within a mobile operating system. iCloud was attempt to catch up to things Android has been doing from the beginning. And let's not forget about Google docs, YouTube, Picasa, and Google Music which is where everything I own is currently stored for free.
Nick Hide 10 February, 2012 09:56
Thanks for your comments. We've clarified that sentence to make it clearer what we were referring to.
anonymous 10 February, 2012 13:38
There is a typo it's Arash Ferdowsi not Ferdowski
Ref: http://www.dropbox.com/about
anonymous 17 February, 2012 12:18
I've been waiting for Google Drive for quite some time. Eagerly waiting for it. Meanwhile found some interesting tools for cloud storage. Tools such as CollateBox http://www.collatebox.com/ and Needlebase are very promising, went through their recent video,. It's simply amazing. U must all have a look at this one!!!!
JohnDavid365 17 February, 2012 12:22
Well Thanks Mr Anonymous thanks for the options which you gave just registered with CollateBox. Seems a powerful tool, can some1 put some light about this product? It says Easier than Excel, better than Google docs, but to me it looks like a niche competitor for Dropbox. Have to wait for the product.