Google's Drive: Better package than the rivals?

The cloud storage battles have clearly begun. Microsoft has fired a salvo by making SkyDrive more accessible with fresh additions to the desktop and smartphone app range. The Redmond giant has had this cloud storage service active for quite a few years now, but didn’t really bother much with it till just recently. Not only the series of apps, but even the space structure has been changed. Till now, every user had 25GB free space, but that has now been chopped to 7GB. We are sure Microsoft knew what Google was coming up with, and tweaked the offering in accordance. However, existing users can still claim a free upgrade to 25GB for a limited time. We did!

The Redmond giant has had this cloud storage service active for quite a few years now, but didn’t really bother much with it till just recently. 

Google responded by announcing the Google Drive. For starters, this gives you 5GB of dedicated storage space, among other incremental upgrades to Gmail space. To start off, you need to head off to www.drive.google.com and sign up with your email ID there. Google will register the request, and inform you when your drive is ready. We know people who have received the confirmation mail within 12 hours, while personally I have been waiting for around 48 hours now. 

Update: We have just received the confirmation mail from Google that my Drive is ready. Downloaded the client for Mac and uploaded some files via the specially created folder on the desktop. If you select “convert files for Google Docs format”, the upload times are significantly more. But quite quick if you are uploading the files as is. 

But does Google Drive threaten the more established services in the market, Dropbox and Windows Live Skydrive, for example? Let us see how they stack up against Google’s latest offering.

Both Drive and SkyDrive will be how most cloud storage services of the future will be like – one stop for all possible tasks.