Microsoft reveals more about Live Drive

Microsoft has confirmed more details of its forthcoming Live Drive service, which will offer free online storage.

Speaking at a blogger's breakfast before the opening of Microsoft's Tech Ed conference in Sydney on Tuesday, Microsoft Australia technical specialist John Hodgson said that the basic Live Drive was likely to include around 2 gigabytes of storage for free. Additional storage capacity will be available for purchase, he said, though pricing and final release dates haven't been announced.

While there have been rumors about Live Drive service in the blogosphere, to date Microsoft has been cagey about officially confirming those plans. What is known is that the service can be mapped directly from PCs running the upcoming Windows Vista operating system.

The service forms part of Microsoft's increasing push for Live, a portfolio of online tools designed to complement the much-delayed Vista, as well as to keep Microsoft competitive with online rivals such as Google. Google has not publicly acknowledged development of a virtual hard-drive service of its own, which has been speculated about in blogs and financial analyst reports.

Both companies already effectively offer free storage via their respective Web mail platforms, but such storage can't easily be mapped to an existing PC.

Angus Kidman of ZDNet Australia reported from Sydney.

[n3td3v]

Microsoft shouldn't be announcing this before Google

It is careless for Microsoft to announce a brand new service, when they know Google are about to launch a similar service.

Microsoft if they had any sense would wait to see what Google bring out first, in order to make adjustments, because we all know Google's Gdrive will be better than Live Drive.

Microsoft aren't the kind of folks who should be beating Google to the chase.

Microsoft are the underdogs and should respect that, to protect their own interests against Google.

[spacydog]

Don't be silly

Announcements like this have no effect on who will win in this area or not. You really don't think all the competitors don't know what each other are up to? It's getting the service into the market and getting the users using them is what will determine the winner.

[Sumatra-Bosch]

Another Lock-in Scam. In Year 2 You'll Need a MS Plug-in to Read Your Data

Anyone who puts any data in MS's hands deserves to lose it. The minute these thugs think they have an opportunity to slip the blade into your belly, they'll do it. They'll grin in your face, chuckling and twisting the blade and asking if the wife and kids are home.

Anyone who uses DeathDrive will wake up one morning, open up a browser and point it to the his DeathDrive directory and see a notice that a special security plug-in will be required for "security purposes" to access your now completely encrypted data. Cost? $100 per meg for the required .Net Passport account and $100 a meg per year for a security maintenance charge.

The EULA will have langauge that all but predicts this confrontation. The newspapers will run stories of outrage, states' attorneys general will threaten suit and MS lawyers will laugh themselves sick while dry humping their BMWs in the company parking lot.

Everyone who uses MS products regrets it. Now that the company is getting desperate there is no telling what they'll attempt - especially now that it is controlled by someone as deeply disturbed as Ballmer.

[mavlast]

.Mac

If Microsoft is launching free web-based facilities that tie in with
Vista, will Apple drop their £69 price tag for .Mac? Let's hope so!

[Llib Setag]

C | NET = MSlave

Running a PR AD for MS about a potentially future release of a yet to be determined & quantified online storage system via MS LIVE is a thinly disguised attempt to usurp Google's GDrive as well as Apple already existing dotMAC online storage system iDisk (overlooked in your "news" article).

Bought & paid for by Citizen Gates & Big Brother Balmer.

[spacydog]

Oh please

Get a grip on yourself. Do a query on cnet and you'll find articles on Google, Microsoft, Apple and every other company of interest to the tech industry. Are you complaining because you do not like the announcement by Microsoft? Or are you complaining because you do not like Microsoft?

[RememberEZ]

Unlimited storage with Google via Writely account?

Google owns writely. Writely offers a free online wordprocessor and free online storage. Apply for an account at:

www.writely.com

GMail Drive - exists already using third party tools.

GMail Drive already exists.
There are tools that allow mapping a GMail account as a network drive and use it as a 2 GB storage.

details on:

http://en.utilidades-utiles.com/download-gmail-drive.html

Googlge GMAIL MAP DRIVE for more tools.

Disclaimer: I have not tried this tool myself.

[lukenova]

Gmail Drive

There are limitations to using the Gmail Drive tools. First, there is a 10mb file size limit. Also, instead of working like a direct connection to a hard drive, these tools have the overhead of having to run through the HTML of gmail -- effectively tricking it into thinking that you are sending files via email to yourself or downloading them. I'm not sure something like this wouldn't be against Google's TOS. However, I'm not saying I haven't used this tool myself...

[pedershk]

Actually...

Something like this is something that is going to benefit immensely from being tightly integrated into the windows desktop experience instead of being offered as an "island" application living on the web. I think Microsoft may have a huge advantage over Google on this one. Google might still surprise me, and boy do they know how to write good apps, too. Gmail is the epitomy of email. I can't get used to going back to folder-based windows clients anymore.

[Gianluca Marcellino]

integration with desktop *and browser* key

Pedershk is right on the mark: the real differentiator will be how seamless Live Drive will appear from your desktop and browsers.

Google and Firefox can probably do as well as Microsoft there, especially if Microsoft does indeed provide a web services model to hook into Live Drive, as they could be pressed to do.

What about this as a constructive focus for blogosphere pressure on the subject?

[Jim Hubbard]

People are stupid.....

"to date Microsoft has been cagey about officially confirming those plans. What is known is that the service can be mapped directly from PCs running the upcoming Windows Vista operating system."

The surest (and most cost effective) way to get word out about your service on the web is to act secretive about it. Every childish reporter and blogger then thinks that s/he has a "scoop" and dutifully informs others about this "breaking story".

Utnil its here, its just vaporware and should be treated as such.

[tech_smart]

Try IBackup

Till biggies ready their killer apps offering free gigs of online storage what will the majority of hapless souls do? Simply backup and restore all your precious data in trusted services like IBackup (www.ibackup.com). The files and folders backed up with IBackup?s IBackup for Windows (www.ibackup.com/ibwin_new.htm) can be mapped to your local computer using another application called IDrive. So on your computer you can open and edit files stored in the online account. Impressed with the performance, PC World recently gave the thumbs up for IBackup and rated it as the ?best all-around backup service?.

IBackup?s applications are easy-to-use, its interfaces are user-friendly, and it has some really powerful scheduling and logging features. And the best thing is, it?s really fast. You will not get runtime errors or ?server not responding? messages frequently as in other services. You can backup multimedia files and then play them in a medial player of your choice. There is no need to download extra software to manage multimedia content.

Besides backup and restores, you can share data with the browser-based application Web-Manager by creating sharable links and emailing the links. You can also instantly ?private share? data with another IBackup user. For additional security and data retention, try IBackup Professional that encrypts data with a user-defined key so that the data stored on IBackup Professional servers cannot be decrypted by anybody other than you. IBackup Professional also allows you to restore up to 30 prior versions including the most recent version of the data files.

Check IBackup?s free trial and get ahead in life folks.

[stacejustservice]

One Word: Patent

This is regarding the Microsoft System "Live Drive" for Consumers to access
their backed-up/hosted files from any device, anywhere?...I've read several
articles that Microsoft and Google are looking into developing this, where-by
they will host the back-up for small businesses and consumers on their "server
farms" with infinite bandwidth for large amounts of data, email capabilities,
etc......

Sorry to break it to them, but we already have the patent for it (we received it
in 2005).

It's called Vdata (www.vdatacom.com) It is a complete "virtual office", complete
with capability to back-up ALL devices (cell phone, PDA's, Blackberry) and can
be accessed from anywhere, at anytime, online.

If you have any sources that you can contact at Microsoft, please inform them
immediately that we have the entire process under patent, and have put about
100K into the project, which we have just started launching. People thus far
are extremely happy with it!!! Essentially, it can (and will) replace a
companies IT people,and save millions in IT costs. I'll be happy to speak with
Microsoft if they would like to purchase the rights, but for now, I just want
people to be able to recover their data easily and from anywhere-without having to purchase software or hardware!!!!!!!!!! No more of the big boys taking your data and selling you more software to fix it!!!!!!!!

Thanks very much!!!!
Take care-
Stacey
www.vdatacom.com
Vdata, 773-871-7171

[jim_99]

LiveDrive and GDrive are just hypes

They have generated a lot of interest, but looking at what LiveDrive beta has to offer, it has nothing exciting. FYI, companies like XDrive, DriveHQ and Filesanywhere have offered better service many years ago. Today, IMO, DriveHQ.com offers the best online storage service that is the closest to the promise of dumping local storage, which requires: security, performance, reliability and ease of use.