

SkyDrive is a threat to Dropbox - davux
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/254298/new_and_improved_skydrive_is_a_threat_to_dropbox.html

======
gouranga
Probably against the grain here, but agree. Not so much SkyDrive but more the
integration between Mesh Skydrive, windows, mac, free office web apps and
windows phone 7.

It's a seriously impressive, well integrated platform that costs nothing and
doesn't tie you into keeping the data in the cloud. There's a copy always on
your machines.

no-one is doing it as well as Microsoft if you ask me. Outside the mainstream
tech press trendy Microsoft bashing I know a lot of people who are switching
back to Live and Office 365. They're sneaking in the back door while everyone
is bitching about them.

~~~
huggyface
_trendy Microsoft bashing_

I've noticed an uptick of the "poor maligned Microsoft" angle lately. It is a
boorish tactic to neuter counterpoints (essentially the yang of the "fanboy!"
rallying cry). I would argue that many Microsoft products get a pass they
would not get from any other company.

I tried Skydrive with OneNote, imagining a world of integration and usability.
It was a horrible failure, not least because Skydrive has a comical latency
for changes to propagate, rendering it useless for many purposes. Add the
terrible, terrible UI. Further the "bundled" angle is a tactic that most
consumers and businesses are rightly wary of now, and it gives Microsoft
little advantage.

Dropbox has nothing to be afraid of from Microsoft. And eventually Microsoft
will simply abandon SkyDrive (after various rebrandings) and leave adopters in
the lurch.

 _I know a lot of people who are switching back to Live and Office 365_

Sure....

~~~
cooldeal
>I've noticed an uptick of the "poor maligned Microsoft" angle lately. It is a
boorish tactic to neuter counterpoints (essentially the yang of the "fanboy!"
rallying cry).

There are a bunch of MS haters around, even on HN.

For example, Microsoft watcher and insider Paul Thurrott's site
<http://winsupersite.com> is hellbanned on HN(banned from even appearing on
the new page), most probably due to excessive flagging from haters and fanboys
of other platforms, while Gruber's posts get top billing.

> I would argue that many Microsoft products get a pass they would not get
> from any other company.

Really?

~~~
msg
I've flagged Gruber in the past for posts that were contentless flamebait (in
my opinion, of course).

I don't know what the story is with Thurrott. Because of the banning, it
sounds like a special case that the mods of HN have ultimately decided on, not
just the users. So I'm ok with believing that it's not just a story about
factions and groupthink.

~~~
cooldeal
I think excessive flagging can hellban websites, just like too many downmods
can hellban users.

I really don't see anything remotely ban worthy on Winsupersite, do you?

------
kposehn
Dropbox is now at the inflection point of having become a standard. All of the
various cloud-drive solutions are gauging themselves in comparison to them; as
such, they have won.

Will SkyDrive manage to become a good competitor? I would expect so,
especially given how Microsoft can push into the field by piggybacking it on
Office, etc.

However, _should_ Microsoft? No.

For Microsoft, SkyDrive will not sell more copies of Windows or Office.
Instead, it will simply be another waste of money and resources on a feature
that will not sway people to their products. If you're going to get Office,
you're going to get Office - a cloud drive won't convince you over some other
offering.

~~~
MichaelApproved
You have it backwards. SkyDrive won't sell more copies of office, it's office
that will sell more subscriptions of SkyDrive.

~~~
kposehn
Not really - my point is that SkyDrive adds nothing to Microsoft's strategy.

It won't really sell large numbers of Office, and the fact that less than 1%
of people use more than 7gb (the free tier) means that it will make very
little money overall.

Office will certainly sell subscriptions of SkyDrive, but they'll be free
subscriptions mostly and the people won't really care about it. It doesn't
make the core product offering more compelling, which seems to be their core
strategy based on the yearly price.

Dropbox has done so well because they aren't just the first mover - they are
the standard by which others are judged. With this in mind, Microsoft is
making a mistake trying to make an offering to compete with it. They should
have just made a deal with Dropbox in the first place.

Dropbox integration would be a fantastic selling point for Office; SkyDrive
integration is not.

~~~
amirmc
> _"Dropbox integration would be a fantastic selling point for Office;
> SkyDrive integration is not"_

I think you may be discounting businesses that actually purchase a lot of
Office licences. SkyDrive can be a way of providing file-syncing and sharing
that's 'good-enough' for their employees/company. (edit: by which I mean it's
a valid strategy to try and protect your turf).

I can see an analogy here with Sharepoint. My (limited) experiences with
Sharepoint have been annoying and tedious yet the fact that it integrates with
existing MS products and is 'good-enough' has made it very successful for
Microsoft [1]. I'm not trying to suggest that SkyDrive could be a $1b business
but that we shouldn't write it off so quickly.

[1] [http://www.businessinsider.com/microsofts-billion-dollar-
bus...](http://www.businessinsider.com/microsofts-billion-dollar-
businesses-2011-10?op=1)

~~~
kposehn
Ok, that is a good point - there's certainly some instances I'm not familiar
with such as the one you cite.

I'm still dubious, especially due to the market penetration Dropbox has, but I
guess we'll see :)

~~~
Terretta
Dropbox has little "market penetration" in the overall market of MS Office
buyers.

Dropbox is familiar to us and the circles we are in, but that doesn't mean it
has any traction at all among the middle-America soccer moms using MS Word to
make flyers for little league or the pet shelter. (The recent photo sync
update should help with this.)

Techies typically "misunderestimate" the traction of entrenched tools among
normals and the value of building add-ons for those entrenched tools.

------
jhuckestein
With a 25GB/user limit less than 1% of the users need more than 7GB of
storage.

That sounds like an argument in favor of keeping the 25GB cap. Does Microsoft
not trust their own data? Are they really allocating 25GB/user currently, do
they need the revenue from the 1% that will now have to pay or what is going
on?

~~~
OzzyB
Good point. The only thing I can think of is that they don't _have_ to give
too much for free -- they just have to give more than their competitors.

Dropbox gives 2gb for free, so 7gb from Microsoft is more than enough to be a
competitive advantage.

Also, by not starting out at 25gb, Microsoft can slowly increase the free
rate, as and when necessary, and generate lots of free press and happy users
along the way as well.

Lastly, since Google's service hasn't launched yet, perhaps it's not prudent
to get into an arms-race right off the bat.

------
mih
Lack of Android and Linux support is still a concern. MS has to address this
or enable third party apps access to these platforms in order for it to be a
real threat to Dropbox. Especially Android since it's one of the fastest
growing OS out there.

~~~
recoiledsnake
From
[http://windowsteamblog.com/windows_live/b/windowslive/archiv...](http://windowsteamblog.com/windows_live/b/windowslive/archive/2012/02/07/connect-
your-android-device-to-skydrive-with-onenote-and-other-apps.aspx)

>If you have an Android device, we also encourage you to try other apps from
partners built using SkyDrive APIs. For example with Browser for SkyDrive or
Cloud Explorer for SkyDrive, you can view, access and upload documents or
photos on your Android phone. Portfolio for SkyDrive lets you organize and
upload photos from your Android phone in batches to SkyDrive. If you want to
add SkyDrive support to your app, site or device, please visit our developer
center.

Looks like there's OneNote and third party apps, but official support would be
nice.

------
wylie
SkyDrive is a threat to Dropbox because they're cheaper? I think Drew Houston
said it near the beginning when asked about competitors, "Do you use any of
those?" That's the difference.

------
ctdonath
Anyone coming up with a personal equivalent to Dropbox? as in same simple
interface, but storage is a multi-terabyte box at your home/office (instead of
a few gigabytes "out there")?

~~~
pella
<https://www.cubby.com>

Cubby - LogMeIn product .. 5Gb Free Cloud

\+ "Unlimited peer-to-peer (P2P) syncing means no storage limits when you're
syncing between your own computers. Storage limits only apply to cubbies that
are synced to the cloud."

<https://www.cubby.com/faq>

~~~
pella
_"LogMeIn Prepares To Take On Dropbox & Box With Launch Of Cloud Storage
Service Cubby"_

[http://techcrunch.com/2012/04/12/logmein-prepares-to-take-
on...](http://techcrunch.com/2012/04/12/logmein-prepares-to-take-on-dropbox-
box-with-launch-of-cloud-storage-service-cubby/)

------
mikeryan
Yes much like Windows Mobile is an Android killer.

~~~
rollypolly
yup, or as much as G+ is a threat to Facebook. It's all about the network
effect.

In my professional circle, everyone is using Dropbox. Dropbox is doing a great
job. There's little incentive to move.

~~~
mey
There is traction to changing away from Facebook. How social/networked is your
dropbox experience?

~~~
bunnyhero
I rely on Dropbox shared folders for exchanging files with some clients. I
also use the Dropbox integration of a few essential iOS apps quite regularly.
For me, switching would mean having my clients install Skydrive, as well
updates to those iOS apps for Skydrive support.

~~~
taude
Everyone here is talking as if it's a all/nothing game. I'm using both DropBox
(to continue to share with existing people) and SkyDrive for my larger,
private stuff. I was able to move several gigs off of DropBox (with no effects
with current people I share with) and then downgraded my account. A 2 Gig
should be enough for me to share with the people I already share with, and I
moved several gigs to MSFT.

Personally, I think DropBox should have had a smaller, paid plan than the
$10/50 gigs. I only needed about 5 -7 total.

Problem solved for now, though.

Edit: I should add that my gigs of stuff I uploaded to SkyDrive today took a
fraction of the time that my DropBox uploads take (not entirely sure why, but
I've always felt DB throttles large files when uploading).

------
paulovsk
I wouldn't say that.

Dropbox is good because is ridiculously simple. I've been using Windows 8 +
Skydrive full time and well, it's not a sunshine.

It's buggy, and just upload files (not folders) and I don't believe it will
get so much better after the official launch.

And yes, Dropbox is probably screwed. I've been using SugarSync just because
it gives me more free space.

If google drive is just as good as dropbox, well, you know the drill.

------
nigelsampson
It's certainly becoming more impressive, though I think the network effect of
Dropbox will certainly help them along.

Having the built in Office apps in Skydrive and the ability to have the same
word doc available on every computer as well as the phone is very handy.

------
tlogan
I don't think amount of free space is a great competitive advantage. If that
is the case Sugarsync should be at least 2x bigger than Dropbox (since they
are give 2x more free space than Dropbox).

I believe amount of free space only become competitive advantage _after_
services have the same service quality as competition _and_ the same level of
integration with applications using the cloud storage (editing, collaboration,
project management, photo sharing, etc.).

As of now Dropbox has way more applications supporting it than SkyDrive so it
seems Dropbox is still ahead.

------
rolleiflex
I just got my ridiculously named teenager mail address to 25gb skydrive, alas,
I'm not going to use it because I can't ever send files with that name to
anybody. Registered a new account, it forced me to give out my ZIP code, and
bam, only 7 GB, I was thinking that offer would be available for all customers
before launch. Well, I'm already. pretty happy with my paid dropbox account,
and Microsoft's out a potentially paying customer.

------
KeyBoardG
I would say Windows Mesh is more a competitor than SkyDrive because its folder
sync and online storage capacity. Neither are getting anywhere near as much
traction as DropBox, but it would do MS good to merge these services asap.

Threat? No. An perfectly viable alternative? Certainly.

~~~
davux
That's exactly what they've done. Mesh became the SkyDrive desktop app. It
lets you get remote access to your PC (either files or remote desktop), as
well as sync with the cloud.

~~~
KeyBoardG
I'm home now running both the SkyDrive app and the LiveMesh app which itself
has cloud storage. I think MS needs to clear things up as both services have
serious overlap and will cause consumer confusion... even if that mean
removing cloud storage from Mesh. As it is now, users can choose to have
LiveMesh needlessly sync the local SkyDrive folder.

Mesh has a nice interface with baked in sync scenarios such as browser
favorites and office settings. The quick and easy remote desktop is a good
touch as well.

------
sakopov
The sad thing about Dropbox is that my free Dropbox account has less space
than my free gmail account. If I found a service which was as reliable and
provided at least 7 gigs of free space, I would jump ship w/o thinking twice.

~~~
joeblau
Stop being selfish and refer more people :). I'm up to 16GB free on mine.

~~~
sakopov
Uh, if only it was this easy... Everyone i know is already using Dropbox.

------
kalmi10
SkyDrive supports really awesome collaborative editing of Office file formats
in the Office 2010 desktop apps. That got me (and a few friends of mine) to
use it instead of Google Docs for collaborative editing of documents.

------
ph0rque
_Microsoft has an app for Windows and for Mac OS X that integrates SkyDrive
with the local OS_

So, no Linux? Then SkyDrive is no threat to Dropbox, at least to my household.

~~~
rhplus
When I last tried, any client can access SkyDrive over WebDAV using
<http://d.docs.live.net/{cID}>

(cID can be found in most SkyDrive URLs).

~~~
antihero
Does webdav sync to your disk automatically and such?

------
BiosElement
Since when is PCWorld's opinion worth anything?

------
loverobots
We need a plugin that automatically encrypts everything _before_ it goes to
the cloud and then decrypts it when we download. So when the subpoena start to
rain our data is safe regardless of what Microsoft or Dropbox are forced to do
by the gov

~~~
loverobots
for those that took the point: I meant an extra level of encryption, just in
case there's a backdoor on the default one.

~~~
Karunamon
Keeping a truecrypt container (with built-in hidden container, naturally)
synched with dropbox is quite easy.

~~~
huhtenberg
Does this require unmounting the TC volume for releasing the file system lock
on its container and letting for the sync to happen? Or does Dropbox know how
to use Shadow Copying now?

~~~
Karunamon
On unmount, unfortunately. It's a bit of a pain, but it ends up working for me
because I keep any TC volumes unmounted unless I'm directly working with their
contents.

