What Impact Will Google GDrive Have on the Cloud Storage Market?

CIO Insight Staff Avatar

Updated on:

It only took Google six or so years to get its long-anticipated GDrive cloud storage service out the door and into general circulation, but it finally did happen on April 24.

What a relief. Now we can stop talking about the "planned" cloud service and just call it "Google’s cloud storage service." To its credit, the company has a good sense of humor about this incredibly protracted project, publishing a blog post entitled "Introducing Google Drive… yes, really" to break the news earlier today.

Thumbing through the eWEEK archives, the earliest story we found was one published March 6, 2006, entitled "Google Continues Drive for Unlimited Storage." The piece talks about the mysterious project that had been up and running internally for a while. That was so long ago the term "cloud computing" wasn’t even in common use way back then.

eWEEK has published dozens of stories by several writers touching on the promised Google cloud storage, but now we can discuss an actual, usable service.

What took such a fast-moving company so long? We’re guessing that Google simply wanted to get it right.

What GDrive Offers

For the record, a GDrive subscription offers the first 5GB of storage for free, which is not a heck of a lot these days. Users can upgrade whenever they want to 25GB for $2.49 a month, 100GB for $4.99 a month or even 1TB for $49.99 a month. When users upgrade to a paid account, their Gmail account storage also will expand to 25GB.

GDrive contains file-sharing and work collaboration tools, among many other features. Naturally, it is designed to work alongside a user’s overall Google+ account. For example, a user can attach photos from GDrive to posts in Google+; in the near future, the company said, they will be able to attach files from Drive directly to emails in Gmail.

GDrive is an open platform, meaning that it uses open standards for application development. Google says it’s working with third-party developers so users can soon have other functionality, such as sending faxes, editing videos and creating Website mockups directly from the storage service. To install these apps, users need to visit the Chrome Web Store.

Google has entered more than a few IT markets as a big-name latecomer–search, smartphone operating systems (Android) and social networking (Buzz network, G+) being but three of the most well-known. Its success record, nonetheless, has been very good.

Many Competitors Have a Big Head Start

There are already dozens–make that hundreds–of cloud storage providers available to handle your files in a safe place. Here is a handy listing of cloud storage services to peruse.

The arrival of GDrive, despite its tardiness, caused quite a stir in the storage industry. Here are some industry leaders and their takes on how they see GDrive’s impact on the fast-growing online storage market. Naturally, business biases play a part in these comments, but take them for what they’re worth, please.

David Friend, chairman and CEO of Carbonite, told eWEEK that "the launch of Google Drive is an excellent time for consumers to better understand the differences between backup, syncing, and cloud storage–all of which are valuable and serve different needs."

While syncing services simply store data for personal use from a different location, you’re not fully protected unless you are using a backup service like Carbonite’s, which is specifically designed to back up computer files unobtrusively and automatically, Friend said.

"With syncing, if your computer crashes, there really is no automated restore process; it’s completely do-it-yourself, but if there is a hard-drive crash or computer failure and you have already installed a backup service, you can rest at ease knowing your files are protected from information loss," Friend said. 

Drew Garcia, vice president of product development at SugarSync, told eWEEK that "Google Drive has been rumored for over four years now, so it comes as no surprise to anyone in the cloud market that Google would be entering this space. The Google Drive service that was launched today is a strong validation that the cloud has gone mainstream, but it does not address the needs of the average user." 

Like most other cloud services, Garcia said, Google Drive does not let users sync all their files and folders from their existing file structure.

"Users are required to drag the files they need into Google Drive, essentially putting them in an extra location [in addition to their existing folder structure]. SugarSync lets users access, sync and share all of their folders without requiring them to put those folders in a separate location. This allows users to work the way they already work, as opposed to learning a new behavior," Garcia said.

 

For more, read the eWeek story: How Google GDrive Will Impact the Cloud Storage Market

 

CIO Insight Staff Avatar