Earlier last week Google announced the launch of their Compute Engine Service in the infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) space and it’s likely to upset both Amazon and Microsoft.
Compute Engine Service is a rental of
virtual servers, so that cloud-applications are scalable and can work at any
load. Google already offers Apps
Engine, which hosts more than one million apps, and according to Google,
Compute Engine is intended to serve the wider audience.
The cost of Google Compute Engine will
start at $0.055USD/hour, which is $0.03USD/hour cheaper than Amazon. Whilst Google is attractive, Amazon
still has the edge. Google only
supports Linux and Google do not have advanced cloud management providers like
Amazon. Therefore, the tools for
developers and IT administrators are limited.
At the same time, Google also announced
enhancements to Google Docs and Google Drive storage services. Google Drive is now available on
Apple’s IOS mobile operating system.
Google Drive is deeply integrated with
Chrome OS. It enables the user to
save a document offline for viewing, such as when boarding a flight. They can then edit the document offline
and when they reconnect to the Internet, the edited document automatically
synchronizes with the earlier version in Drive.
Here’s an article pulled from Mashable to
explain how Google Drive compares with its competitors.
Now that Google Drive is finally a reality, how does it
stack up against the cloud competition?
Google’s new cloud-based
document and storage solution is priced aggressively and boasts best-in-class integration
with other Google services — including Google Docs. As you can see from our hands-on, Google Drive is an
impressive product.
Still, the cloud storage
and collaboration space is more competitive than ever before. Google faces
competition not just from cloud companies such as Box and Dropbox, but from Apple, Microsoft and
Amazon as well.
Storage and Pricing
Google is pricing Google Drive at a VERY
aggressive level. For $30 a year ($2.50 a month), users get 25GB to use for
Google Drive and Picasa, plus 25GB of Gmail storage.
This is more than what
Amazon and Microsoft charge for an additional 20GB, but less than the price of
Dropbox, Apple and Box.net.
For $60 a year ($5 a
month), Google offers 100GB of Drive and Picasa storage (plus 25GB for Gmail),
which clocks in below Amazon, Apple, Dropbox and Box.net. For penny pinchers,
Microsoft’s offer of 100GB of additional storage — on top of the 7 or 25GB that
users already get with the service — is just $50 a year.
Dropbox and Box are among
the more expensive services.
A 100GB Dropbox account
costs more than three times what a Google Drive account costs. In this area,
Google is clearly trying to undermine its competition on a per-GB pricing
basis.
In the case of Box, the
company’s real focus is on business users. Box’s pricing is also significantly
higher than Google Drive; however, that differentiation is also part of the
company’s focus. As Box has told us on multiple occasions, it wants to replace
Microsoft SharePoint in the SMB and Enterprise space. While Google is also
looking in this direction, Box has a bevy of services and integrations that are
focused on replacing a company’s central file server.
Upload Limit
The most limiting factor
of the majority of cloud storage and collaboration services isn’t the total
amount of storage — it’s the limitations on upload size.
Google has an impressive
10GB limit on files or folders. This is significantly more than the 2GB limit
imposed by most cloud services. Only Dropbox’s desktop apps for Mac, Windows
and Linux do better. With Dropbox, the only limitation is the size of a storage
plan.
Collaboration and sharing
Like Microsoft’s SkyDrive
and Box, Google Drive offers in-browser access to files and folders, including
document editing via Google Docs.
And like SkyDrive, Box and
iCloud, third-party applications can plug into Google Drive to retrieve or
store files. This makes keeping apps synchronized across devices and platforms
much more seamless.
Mobile Integration
Although Google Drive’s
Android app is already around, Google is making iOS users wait for access to
the app. This is in contrast to Dropbox, Box and SkyDrive, which all offer
official or unofficial solutions for multiple mobile platforms.
Amazon and Apple are
behind in the mobile access game. Apple makes iCloud exclusively available to
iOS 5 users, and Amazon’s Cloud Drive only integrates with Android (and the
integration is limited at that).
Desktop Integration
Part of the reason that
Dropbox has such a loyal following is because of its fantastic Desktop
integration. Mac, Windows and Linux users can automatically sync and share
files from their native file systems without having to bother with desktop
uploads.
This is a similar approach
to the one Box has taken with its Box Sync service for Windows, and to what
Microsoft employs for SkyDrive for Windows and Mac.
Google Drive’s desktop app
works essentially the same as SkyDrive — in other words, it isn’t as tightly
coupled with the file system as Dropbox, but it does the job.
Final Thoughts
Which cloud storage
service an individual or business decides to use is a decision that should
encompass more than just comparing specs and pricing. Take time to use a
service and see how it integrates into your workflow before plunking down cash
on an upgrade.
For users and businesses
heavily tied to Google Docs, Google Drive will likely make sense. For those
that love Dropbox or need some of Box’s more robust features, Google Drive
might not fit the bill. For Microsoft Office users, consider giving Microsoft
SkyDrive a try — it works well and also offers online access to basic web and
editing apps.
Ultimately, neither
offering from Apple nor Amazon is likely to compete with Google Drive
— the products are focused on different use cases.
We’d also like to give Canonical’s Ubuntu One a shout-out. We didn’t include it in
our direct comparison because of its more limited options, but for Windows and
Ubuntu users, its free service is worth a look as well.
Tell us your thoughts on
the cloud storage and collaboration space. Does Google Drive have the goods to
compete? Let us know in the comments.
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