05 February 2009

GDrive and Live Mesh

There have been rumours but it does look like Google are getting ready to launch something that could be really big. The article below from David Mayer at ZDNet.

There's been a flurry of speculation of late, surrounding Google's online storage play, the fabled "GDrive". We're always suspicious of such unconfirmed, echo-chamber-type stories, but this one is most definitely real.

The evidence lies in an online, recently-updated Google Pack file that refers to a product, called GDrive, that "provides reliable storage for all of your files, including photos, music and documents [and] allows you to access your files from anywhere, any time and from any device - be it from your desktop, web browser or mobile phone".

It is not yet clear how much storage will be available through GDrive, as Google has not yet officially announced its launch. A Google spokesperson sent a statement to ZDNet UK on Friday, which said that "cloud computing is going mainstream" and noted that "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 sharing and access options, but we don't have anything new to announce right now," Google's statement read.

Quick addition. Microsoft's Live Mesh! More soon but it looks brilliant, in theory, at any rate. Access one computer's files from another, synchronise stuff. Sounds like exactly what I've wanted for ages and this could transform the way we all work. OK. I'll calm down. Go check out Office Watch and make your own mind up.