The rumours have resurfaced. The Wall Street Journal has reported that a limited online storage service is to be available from Google soon, with additional storage available on a paid-for basis.
As previously predicted, the paper says the service will be known as GDrive. Those funny Google guys!
We asked Google for a statement on the matter. A spokesperson replied and predictably said it doesn't "have anything new to announce right now." But there is a nugget of intrigue in an otherwise bland statement.
"Storage is an important component of making web apps fit easily into consumers' and business users' lives.That's why we've always offered a lot of free storage, and it's why we offer paid options for buckets of "overflow" storage spanning across apps, including Picasa Web Albums and Google mail for now, with more services like Google Docs to come."
Although long-awaited, the GDrive concept was first leaked last year when a presentation found its way online. In it, Google spoke of storing '100%' of your data. The details also talked of making online storage the 'golden copy' of your data, with your local information
Privacy worries?
We're a bit doubtful about that last point. After all, But would you trust Google with your data? After all, these guys don't even seem to want to move anything out of beta - and that's before you get to privacy concerns.
The GDrive will be part of what Google calls 'cloud computing' - pooling data into large data centres rather than carrying out tasks on individual machines. "Cloud computing is going mainstream," said our spokesperson. "The applications people use every day, such as email, photo sharing, and word processing, are moving to the web because it's easier to share and access your data from anywhere when it's online, in one place."
"We're always listening to our users and looking for ways to update and improve our web applications, including storage options"
Microsoft's rival SkyDrive web app is currently in beta and provides 1GB of storage at present. It's set to fully launch next year, potentially with more storage space.
