Skip to main content

Microsoft Readies Storage Service to Rival Google's 'Gdrive'

The MSN team is working on a new Windows Live service, code-named Live Drive, that will provide users with a virtual hard drive for storing hosted personal data.

Microsoft archrival Google is developing similar technology, code-named Gdrive, according to information Google accidentally shared with analysts in early March.

Google's Gdrive solution is expected to provide both consumers and business customers with an unlimited amount of online storage for their data. Google has declined to provide further specifics or a timetable for its planned Gdrive rollout.

According to sources, Google is working two other storage-related services: GDS and Lighthouse. All three projects are focused on delivering "infinite storage" and "infinite bandwidth," according to slides Google shared with analysts.

Microsoft, likewise, has shared few specifics about Live Drive. Microsoft Chief Technology Officer Ray Ozzie publicly acknowledged Microsoft's Live Drive plans in an interview with Fortune Magazine published on April 19.

"Microsoft is planning to use its server farms to offer anyone huge amounts of online storage of digital data," according to Fortune. "With Live Drive, all your information—movies, music, tax information, a high-definition videoconference you had with your grandmother, whatever—could be accessible from anywhere, on any device."

Microsoft has been eyeing the hosted storage space for at least two years. In 2004, Microsoft was rumored to be readying a hosted backup-and-restore service for SOHO (small office/home office) and consumer customers.

Sources close to Microsoft described that service as one where Microsoft would back up users' personal files on CD and/or DVD. Users also would be able to back up financial files, legal documents, digital photos, online music and home videos, and even put their most important files into a "digital safe-deposit box," hosted by Microsoft, sources said.

The Microsoft hosted storage service was expected to be available via subscription. It originally was expected to debut in 2005.

There are other places where storage figures into the Microsoft Live equation.

In March, Microsoft officials described the company's plans for making Live a developer platform in its own right.

As part of that strategy, Microsoft is opening up the Live platform to other Microsoft and external third-party developers. At the "core" level, said Brian Arbogast, corporate vice president for the MSN Communications Platform with the MSN and Personal Services Division, Microsoft is making available to developers three sets of Live interfaces: contacts, identity and storage. Microsoft is expecting developers to build on top of these when devising new Windows Live services.

Microsoft officials did not respond by the time this article was published to further questions regarding Live Drive's availability and planned target audience.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

US says world safer, despite 11,000 attacks in '05

The U.S. war on terrorism has made the world safer, the State Department's counterterrorism chief said on Friday, despite more than 11,000 terrorist attacks worldwide last year that killed 14,600 people. The U.S. State Department said the numbers, listed in its annual Country Reports on Terrorism released on Friday, were based on a broader definition of terrorism and could not be compared to the 3,129 international attacks listed the previous year. But the new 2005 figures, which showed attacks in Iraq jumped and accounted for about a third of the world's total, may fuel criticism of the Bush administration's assertion that it is winning the fight against terrorism. Asked if the world was safer than the previous year, U.S. State Department Counterterrorism Coordinator Henry Crumpton told a news conference, "I think so. But I think that (if) you look at the ups and downs of this battle, it's going to take us a long time to win this. You can't measure this month ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Al-Qaeda number two in new video

Al-Qaeda's number two Ayman al-Zawahiri has appeared in a video saying that Iraqi insurgents have "broken the back" of the US military. He praised "martyrdom operations" carried out by al-Qaeda in Iraq in the video, posted on an Islamist website. And he called on the people and army of Pakistan to fight against President Musharraf's administration. This is the third message from prominent al-Qaeda leaders to emerge within a week. A tape from Osama Bin Laden was broadcast on 23 April, followed two days later by a message from Iraqi insurgent Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Pakistan focus Zawahiri, who wore a black turban and a white robe in the video, described the leaders of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Iraq as traitors, and urged Muslims to "confront them". He praised Iraqi militants, saying that the US, Britain and allies had "achieved nothing but losses, disasters and misfortunes" in Iraq. "Al-Qaeda in Iraq alone has carried out 800 ma...
Post a Comment
Read more

Does light have mass?

The short answer is "no", but it is a qualified "no" because there are odd ways of interpreting the question which could justify the answer "yes". Light is composed of photons so we could ask if the photon has mass. The answer is then definitely "no": The photon is a massless particle. According to theory it has energy and momentum but no mass and this is confirmed by experiment to within strict limits. Even before it was known that light is composed of photons it was known that light carries momentum and will exert a pressure on a surface. This is not evidence that it has mass since momentum can exist without mass. [ For details see the Physics FAQ article What is the mass of the photon? ]. Sometimes people like to say that the photon does have mass because a photon has energy E = hf where h is Planck's constant and f is the frequency of the photon. Energy, they say, is equivalent to mass according to Einstein's famous formula E = m...
6 comments
Read more