Storage news from both Google and Microsoft today: The former is giving you the ability to upgrade your combined Gmail and Picasa Web Album storage, in what could be a precursor to a full-fledged Gdrive storage offering, and the latter has launched its news Windows Live Skydrive.
Both are defective, in my opinion. I realize that these are just betas, but Google is way off base with 6 gigabytes of combined Gmail and Picasa storage for $20 a year. The early-bird (or more likely mistaken) price of $1 made a lot more sense to me. Storage is virtually free, and Google knows it — and as more than one person has pointed out already, Yahoo Mail is unlimited, and Flickr.com has unlimited storage for $20.
Windows Live Skydrive, meanwhile, starts with the clunky Windows Folders interface and design and 500 megabytes of storage. What the heck is that all about? I have photos that are 500 megabytes in size (okay, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but not much). Mike Arrington of TechCrunch is similarly unimpressed.
Microsoft is going to have to work a little harder than that, and so is Google. Storage options like JungleDrive that are built using Amazon’s ultra-cheap S3 storage service — and others like the ones described at Read/Write Web — look pretty good compared to either one at the moment.