Rumors of Google getting into the cloud storage game with a so-called “GDrive” have been floating around since at least 2006. While we may have to wait a little longer for a real enterprise-level storage solution from the search giant, the house that search built is making moves in the right direction. One example Google says users will soon be able to store and share any kind of file on their increasingly popular Google Docs browser-based productivity suite — and VARs are going to be able to leverage it.
By default, all users will get 1GB of storage, with a 250MB-per-file limit. If you’re an enterprise Google Apps user, you’ll be able to purchase additional storage for $3.50/GB/year. Any files hosted with Google can be securely shared with anyone else in the same manner Google Docs users are accustomed to, and they’re making available the API for batch uploading.
Still, though, it’s just dumb storage in a time where offerings like Carbonite and Dropbox have users expecting more.
“I’m not sure that the solution that has been announced goes far enough, but it is a good iterative step in the right direction, which is how Google works,” says Daniel Jefferies, founder and president of Google Apps reseller Newmind Group.
To help bridge the gap between what they’re offering and what users need, three third party software vendors have already announced that they’re stepping up to the plate. Again according to that blog entry:
- Memeo Connect for Google Apps is a new desktop application that offers an easy way to access, migrate, and synchronize files to Google Docs across multiple computers. (PC and Mac)
- Syncplicity offers businesses automated back-up and file management with Google Docs. (PC)
- Manymoon is an online project management platform that makes it simple to organize and share tasks and documents with coworkers and partners, including uploading files to Google Docs.
Given that they seem to have more free storage than they know what to do with, it seems odd that they didn’t get into this market sooner. Only time will tell if this is Google’s token nod to an emerging cloud storage market or the first shot in a battle for market share.
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Matt,
This cloud document storage announcement by Google is quite significant. It allows third party developers like Socialwok (http://www.socialwok.com) to leverage Google Apps cloud office productivity suite and Google Docs online storage to provide interesting enterprise cloud services. I would say it is more than “dumb” storage.
For example, Socialwok provides unified login for Google Apps domains and business social networking service for Google Apps domains. One login, one social platform for Google Docs, Calendar etc sharing. See this pic on our Google Apps domain based files and Google docs sharing capabilities based on Google Docs online storage
http://www.twitpic.com/y0yrx
http://www.twitpic.com/y0ynw
Ming Yong
CEO of Socialwok (http://www.socialwok.com)