Rumors of a “Google Drive” remote storage service have been around since before the current cloud craze, but if recent screenshots can be believed, it’s finally coming to fruition very soon. Talk Android got tipped on what looks like a Dropbox-style web service from the Big G offering 5 gigabytes of free cloud storage, considerably more than some would-be competitors. The style of the webpage matches Google’s most recent updates for other web services, and the triangular logo matches the one we saw in a previous leak. This could be fake, but I kind of doubt it.
One thing’s for sure: if Google’s planning its own cloud service, it’s bound to get a hearty dose of Android integration. If the green phone logo on the screenshot above wasn’t enough, just consider their latest additions to their web stable: Google+, Google Music, et cetera. And it’s not as if they don’t have a template to copy. Dropbox, Box.net and other long-standing services already have some impressive offerings on Android and other mobile platforms.
So what could Google offer to beat these competitors? Aside from tight integration with your existing Google services, not much. True, 5GB is considerably more than Dropbox is offering, but HTC owners get 5GB automatically, and if you’re a savvy Android user you can get access to up to 50GB of storage from Box.net. The best way that Google could differentiate itself would be low prices for storage expansion and integration with other Google services – like, for example, placing all the attachments from your Gmail account in a dedicated folder. There’s no indication of when or if Google Drive may be coming, but a reveal around Google I/O in June seems likely.
I just hope that this is available worldwide – I’m still waiting for Google Music.
5GB is more like it for a starting offer and I’m sure it will only go up from there.
It’s success will be determined by how well Google manage to integrate it with their existing services and how easy it can be used to mirror files between machines and OSs.
So far, Dropbox is doing the latter very well; but if Google can do the same while connecting their platform to G+, Picasa, Docs and what-have-you, I think they have a winner.
Sounds good. Now Dropbox needs to finally sell to Apple and retire. Apparently Steve wanted to integrate Dropbox into the OS but DB said no. Dropbox will not be able to compete if google maintains their .25 per GB fee structure. I’m a DB fanboy but even I won’t stick around at the prices they charge. And I don’t think there even is a premium feature out there that might make it worth it to the general consumer. The one thing they really have going for them is their ubiquity. I Have a number of apps that are garbage by themselves, but indispensable with Dropbox integrated. The thing is, all of the apps I currently rely on because of the DB integration currently only use about 10 mb of storage, so the free DB offering will keep me happy for decades. Anyways, I’d love to see Apple get Dropbox integrated into their OS and provide some competition for google to keep the market moving and exciting.