Google testing Web-based storage service?

Google appears to be testing a virtual hard-drive storage service, which the rumor mill has dubbed GDrive but is code-named "Platypus," according to this blog.

Blogger Corsin Camichel says he was investigating which programming language Writely runs on and happened upon a Web index page that looks like a test site offering backup, synchronization, collaboration and disconnected access. He's got a screen shot of the site on his blog.

"Isn't that great? Google really IS testing GDrive, and the features look great," he writes.

GDrive would fit the company's direction of keeping client terminals "thin" so fewer resources are needed on a user's machine, a differentiator to Microsoft's "fat" client terminal software, Robert Peck, an analyst at Bear Stearns, writes in a research note released on Monday.

"This has the benefit of increasing usage to the Internet, accessing one's information, and lowering a barrier to Internet growth (cost of the user's terminal)," he wrote. "We also believe that a good portion of Google's increasing capex (capital expenditure) will be spent on the project in the future, as resource demands would be substantial. Lastly, the more information Google stores on its users, the more likely they could use that information to better serve ads (perhaps on an opt-in basis only)."

Peck says he has not confirmed the existence of GDrive with Google. And neither has CNET News.com.