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Post your comments for Google Drive Vs. Microsoft SkyDrive: 4 Reasons Google Wins Out here

[mobiletonster]

I completely disagree. After using both services side by side for the last 2 days, SkyDrive is the clear winner in nearly every important category. Capacity, price and features.

Google Drive's offline capability is completely worthless. All the "docs" are nothing more than links to the online documents...and if you are away from the internet and need to pull up a doc, forget it.

SkyDrive's implementation of documents, spreadsheets, powerpoint and one note kick GDocs all over the place.

I will give the clean interface (frankly Metro-look) of GDocs a +1 and a +1 for their decent search. However, the folder management and permission management control is much better on SkyDrive.

Add to the fact that SkyDrive allows extending to unlimited private cloud capacity via the ability to access your home computer from work via SkyDrive web....and it is a no brainer. SkyDrive wins hands down.

[ellett]

I've found it's not necessary to store mp3 files in Docs/Drive because you can store up to 20,000 "music" files for free in Google Play and play them from the cloud or download them. The Google Music Manager works very well; anything I buy from Amazon or Apple I download to my music directory and within a few minutes everything has been transparently uploaded to the Play cloud.

[anonymuos]

How about support for Windows XP which Google Drive has whereas Microsoft's vested interested in ignoring XP makes it lose in this department?

[ellett]

Not true. If you drag a Word file, for instance, into your Google Drive folder, it's there in all its multimegabyte glory, both locally and in your Google Drive cloud.

If you create a document file in Google Docs, which is by definition a cloud-only format, then what's local is a hyperlink to the file, which exists only in the Google Drive cloud.

If you save the Google Docs file in Word format, it's once again there in all its multimegabyte glory both locally and in your Google Drive cloud.

So Google Drive is working just like it should.

[onsiteone]

mobiletonster, on 25 April 2012 - 07:41 PM, said:

Google Drive's offline capability is completely worthless. All the "docs" are nothing more than links to the online documents...and if you are away from the internet and need to pull up a doc, forget it.

all your existing word, excel,powerpoint, pdf, ect files that you upload into gdrive are still available to you offline like how dropbox works. It's only "google docs" specific docs that were initially created online that are not available when you're offline.

btw, with today's proliferation of hotspots and smartphone tethering and reliance to social networking, online backups, netflix, cloud computing... you should admit that the audience of Google drive and ms skydive including yourself will rarely intentionally put themselves in an environment without Internet access.

[followmarko]

anonymuos, on 25 April 2012 - 10:43 PM, said:

How about support for Windows XP which Google Drive has whereas Microsoft's vested interested in ignoring XP makes it lose in this department?

Lol. Grow up and move to Windows 7 already.

[mobiletonster]

onsiteone, on 25 April 2012 - 11:47 PM, said:

mobiletonster, on 25 April 2012 - 07:41 PM, said:

Google Drive's offline capability is completely worthless. All the "docs" are nothing more than links to the online documents...and if you are away from the internet and need to pull up a doc, forget it.

all your existing word, excel,powerpoint, pdf, ect files that you upload into gdrive are still available to you offline like how dropbox works. It's only "google docs" specific docs that were initially created online that are not available when you're offline.

btw, with today's proliferation of hotspots and smartphone tethering and reliance to social networking, online backups, netflix, cloud computing... you should admit that the audience of Google drive and ms skydive including yourself will rarely intentionally put themselves in an environment without Internet access.

I think that is the perspective of a lot of people these days...that the internet is ubiquitous and fast everywhere. Unfortunately, this isn't completely true yet. I think that Google operates from the perspective of their high speed access in Mountain View, CA. If they were headquartered in West Africa, maybe they would engineer their products a little differently. Maybe their target customer is only the upper echelon of those of use who live on this side of the digital divide. In any case, the gdocs and gsheets limitation was very dissapointing. Yes you can upload word docs, but they aren't editable in the online interface. You have to convert them to gdocs...then they aren't editable offline. With SkyDrive, you don't have to deal with that compromise.

This post has been edited by mobiletonster: 26 April 2012 - 07:02 AM

[A41202813]

@followmarko

Make Me.

Cheers.

[EvanRadavicius]

You can stream videos from SkyDrive directly...

[onsiteone]

mobiletonster, on 26 April 2012 - 07:00 AM, said:

I think that is the perspective of a lot of people these days...that the internet is ubiquitous and fast everywhere. Maybe their [google's] target customer is only the upper echelon of those of use who live on this side of the digital divide.

Exactly. in my opinion the target audience of google drive, skydrive, dropbox, etc are you and me - who will always be near a high speed internet connection and who already practice cloud computing (and understand its pros and cons). Being able to "edit offline" is not needed. honestly, when was the last time you sat down at your computer when it had no internet connection? my guess is that most of us tech heads and cloud users only attempt to turn on our computers when an internet connection is present.

so when comparing cloud services, being able to access your data offline is not high on the priority list... except for Microsoft who is currently behind icould and google in regards to clound computing. Microsoft like to tout "offline" as a featuree.. since its software is still stuck in offline computing mode (and software $$ purchase model)... while everyone else is already online and free (eg. facebook, twitter, pineterest, craigslist, dropbox, groupon, etc..)

[onsiteone]

followmarko, on 26 April 2012 - 06:53 AM, said:

anonymuos, on 25 April 2012 - 10:43 PM, said:

How about support for Windows XP which Google Drive has whereas Microsoft's vested interested in ignoring XP makes it lose in this department?

Lol. Grow up and move to Windows 7 already.

a large proportion of businesses and lower income families can't upgrade yet and rely on windows xp.

[onsiteone]

FYI for those who have a computer and find themselves with no internet:

Google Drive and google docs offline
http://goo.gl/mDyKm

You can view the google docs but cannot edit while offline. Ah well, but you can't even access facebook, twitter, or anything else useful when offline.. hehe.

[WixosTrixmdhe]

Fanboyism aside, these points seem rather weak, except for the video preview part. SkyDrive doesn't block sharing of MP3 either so I don't know where that point came from.

Also, Microsoft's storage capacities are additional to your free allotment. So if you have 7 GB and get the 20 GB plan for $10/year, you will have a total of $27.

[anonymuos]

followmarko, on 26 April 2012 - 06:53 AM, said:

Lol. Grow up and move to Windows 7 already.

You need to remove your Microsoft-flavored goggles and see the world as it really is. Windows 7 has a dumbed down interface which reduces your productivity.

[slandshark]

WixosTrixmdhe, on 26 April 2012 - 04:56 PM, said:

Fanboyism aside, these points seem rather weak, except for the video preview part. SkyDrive doesn't block sharing of MP3 either so I don't know where that point came from.

Also, Microsoft's storage capacities are additional to your free allotment. So if you have 7 GB and get the 20 GB plan for $10/year, you will have a total of $27.

Did you mean 27gb?

[onsiteone]

WixosTrixmdhe, on 26 April 2012 - 04:56 PM, said:

Fanboyism aside, these points seem rather weak, except for the video preview part. SkyDrive doesn't block sharing of MP3 either so I don't know where that point came from.

Also, Microsoft's storage capacities are additional to your free allotment. So if you have 7 GB and get the 20 GB plan for $10/year, you will have a total of $27.

Concerning music and Skydrive - do MP3's count toward the 27GB limit for Skydrive's free account? For those who like listening to music and downloading songs you can store 20,000 of your mp3's for free on your Google Music account online, which doesn't touch the free space on your Google Drive account. How much space is 20,000 mp3s? Here's some ballpark measurements:

4 min song @ 128 KBps = 4MB per mp3 file x 20,000 file limit = 80,000MB of storage you will use for free
4 min song @ 192 KBps = 6MB per mp3 file x 20,000 file limit = 120,000MB of storage you will use for free
4 min song @ 256 KBps = 8MB per mp3 file x 20,000 file limit = 160,000MB of storage you will use for free
4 min song @ 320 KBps = 10MB per mp3 file x 20,000 file limit = 200,000MB of storage you will use for free

On top of that, any music you purchase from the Google music store (which is always encoded at the max 320kbps) does not count toward your online storage limit. Skydrive's free 27GB is indeed larger than Google Drive's 5GB, but can you stream your collection of 20,000 mp3s to your phone or computer(s) from that 27GB Skydrive space?

This post has been edited by onsiteone: 27 April 2012 - 10:39 AM

[AntonBabadjanov]

onsiteone, on 26 April 2012 - 09:39 AM, said:

mobiletonster, on 26 April 2012 - 07:00 AM, said:

I think that is the perspective of a lot of people these days...that the internet is ubiquitous and fast everywhere. Maybe their [google's] target customer is only the upper echelon of those of use who live on this side of the digital divide.

Exactly. in my opinion the target audience of google drive, skydrive, dropbox, etc are you and me - who will always be near a high speed internet connection and who already practice cloud computing (and understand its pros and cons). Being able to "edit offline" is not needed. honestly, when was the last time you sat down at your computer when it had no internet connection? my guess is that most of us tech heads and cloud users only attempt to turn on our computers when an internet connection is present.

so when comparing cloud services, being able to access your data offline is not high on the priority list... except for Microsoft who is currently behind icould and google in regards to clound computing. Microsoft like to tout "offline" as a featuree.. since its software is still stuck in offline computing mode (and software $$ purchase model)... while everyone else is already online and free (eg. facebook, twitter, pineterest, craigslist, dropbox, groupon, etc..)

Really? Offline is not needed?

Well I am offline every day on my commute to work (no WiFi on the bus; and mind you, I am grandfathered on a cell plan with unlimited data + tethering, but no need to use it when not necessary), also offline when I go visit friends and family (taking a train, bus, or plane) and still in some coffee shops, parks, etc.

For me offline access is THE feature which makes or breaks the service. Call me old-fashioned, but I would also like to keep the data somewhere on my own physical hardware too. The cloud can fail, connectivity breaks when you most need it - I want to be sure that I have my own copy too (and vice-versa have it in the cloud if I lose my own copy).

I also think that I much prefer to keep the heavy bits (e.g. video) offline only, instead of pay monthly to keep them in the cloud even if I don't access them all the time. In other words, a hybrid scenario.

Just take a look at history - a long time ago everybody thought mainframes and dumb clients would rule the world. Then came the PC and this changed. Now, we have a new take on mainframes called the 'cloud'. There is a lot of value in it, but it is *not a panacea*! Things in life aren't black or white, but many shades of gray!

[SlyFred]

onsiteone, on 26 April 2012 - 03:05 PM, said:

FYI for those who have a computer and find themselves with no internet:

Google Drive and google docs offline
http://goo.gl/mDyKm

You can view the google docs but cannot edit while offline. Ah well, but you can't even access facebook, twitter, or anything else useful when offline.. hehe.

Well, that would be fine if they weren't MY ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS ! The other services you mentioned are on-line services from the get-go.
I can't figure how anyone could be happy with handing over their document, having to convert it...then, after happily editing on-line even collaborating with others....giving this on-line document real value....then finding you CAN'T...EVER....load that back into you humble PC's word processor to contribute locally.
You would have to know beforehand that you would not have Internet access so you could copy and past into a new document (as long as you had Google Chrome's extension that allows copying and pasting of Google Doc bits).

Google Docs works as a great back-up of the original format only, you just can't edit that copy on-line if you are on another device.
Once converted to a Google Doc, you have that editing capability on-line, but you loose it off-line.
Is that Syncing?
I've been using Google Docs for a while including the Android App and I'm OK with everything else.
No true synchronising of the original format is the show-stopper.

[gurang]

All I can say is that if you're going to give Drive a try, be careful. I am definitely a Google fanboy and was thrilled when Drive became available. After uploading many gigabytes the sync between Drive and my PC failed and could not be reinstated with deleting my Drive folder and starting all over. The Google support forums show that I have lots of company. I switched to SkyDrive and it has proved to be very solid. It was not bothered by power failures when sync was in progress. I suggest avoiding the .gdoc format like the plague. Hopefully Google will improve Drive, but for me it's just a beta effort.