With an official description, Google Drive is more real than ever

http://venturebeat.com/2009/01/30/with-an-official-description-google-drive-is-more-real-than-ever/

by froo • 17 years ago

31 21 17 years ago

foobar2k• 17 years ago

I love dropbox, but if google release basically the same thing, how are dropbox going to survive?

GavinB• 17 years ago

1) Be a better piece of software 2) Get acquired by someone who wants to compete with Google 3) Have enough customers to stay profitable even if Google has a larger userbase.

Google doesn't have a monopoly, even in its core offerings like search and e-mail. There will always be space for other players.

unalone4• 17 years ago

I would suspect that Dropbox has a pretty fanatic group of fans out there. I'm one: Dropbox saved my ass when Boot Camp wrecked my hard drive. 7 years of documents were all saved, even though I'd deleted them from Dropbox previously. That's an incredible service. I recommend it to everybody who needs a good way to store stuff online, or share stuff.

Google isn't omnipotent. Orkut was a terrible social network because they just didn't get what to do. I'd guess same goes with that animated world they made that just recently closed. While they're powerful, it's really hard to beat out a truly stellar product, and Dropbox is one of the best I've seen.

lacker• 17 years ago

Not that I like or use Orkut, but keep in mind it's the #1 social network in some countries. The story has to be a bit more complicated than "it's terrible, they just didn't get it."

nickb3• 17 years ago

It's hard to compete with free. Google can afford to undercut Dropbox.

mikebo• 17 years ago

I agree with you in some ways. When it comes to online storage/sync, there is a significant element of trust involved. I wonder both about security of the data and whether or not the company itself will be around in several years.

jamesbritt• 17 years ago

Whichever has the better, broader Linux support gets my business.

Last I looked, Dropbox required I use Nautilus, whereas I prefer Konqueror (I'm running Kubuntu).

eli• 17 years ago

I think this is the most clear-cut case of people getting excited about a product solely because the brand name is Google.

Online file storage is boring. Dropbox is free and works really, really well.

froo• 17 years ago

Sound's like someone hasn't been keeping up with the GDrive rumours.

From what is being suggested, is that Google will be giving people the equivalent of dropbox's premium services... for free.

I think dropbox is great, I have a free account and use it all the time, I'd like to get a premium account if my needs ever get to that point - but if Google can provide significantly more space + their brand recognition, it's going to be hard to compete with.

blurry• 17 years ago

Dropbox is only free for 2GB, not much if you want to back up photos.

charlesju• 17 years ago

Google just needs to acquire Dropbox and scale them out.

DenisM• 17 years ago

In the mean time one can use http://www.jungledisk.com/ it keeps stuff in S3, looks like a local disk drive, client-side encryption, standard amazon s3 rates + $20 for software itself.

You can also give your key to their middle-tier server and have web access to your files.

shimi• 17 years ago

DropBox are excellent. But I'll move to Google the moment they will provide the service because I'm using Android (Assuming that an Android client will be coming out)

With an official description, Google Drive is more real than ever

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