Is Google Going into the Storage Business?
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No, we don't think Google is buying up rental storage warehouses--as least not yet. But online storage is another matter entirely. Now that there's been an information leak about the elusive GDrive, what can we expect? And more to the point, should we be concerned that Google wants to store so much information in its own servers?
They say that loose lips sink ships. In the case of the search engine field, loose notes set off a flurry of speculation, at least when Google is involved. Especially when those loose notes confirm the existence of something a number of analysts have already speculated about.
As has happened so often before, we have an intrepid blogger to thank for this information. The loose notes were apparently part of a slide presentation made by Google executives and later published on the company’s website. The notes were taken down, but what the blogger discovered leaves us with food for thought.
“With infinite storage, we can house all user files, including emails, web history, pictures, bookmarks, etc. and make it accessible from anywhere (any device, any platform, etc.),” the notes originally stated. According to some reports, Google CEO Eric Schmidt stated in his presentation that one of the company’s goals is to “store 100 percent” of consumer information.
The PowerPoint presentation was replaced with a 94 page Adobe Acrobat file that did not contain speaker’s notes. And Google spokeswoman Lynn Fox refused to comment on any specific service (such as the elusive GDrive), but she did confirm that the presentation had been released onto the web by mistake. “We deleted the slide notes because they were not intended for publication.” As to the GDrive, “We are constantly working on new ways to enhance our products and services for users, but have nothing to announce at this time.”
Looking at Google’s recent products and services, one could say that the company was already heading in the direction of creating a GDrive. GMail stores all of a user’s emails, and with the size of the digital inbox, there’s never a need to delete anything. The Search Across Computers feature of Google’s upgraded Desktop Search actually makes copies of the text files located on all of the computers in a user’s personal network. The files are kept for only a limited amount of time, but still, for that amount of time, the information is stored on Google’s servers.
Next: How Might GDrive Work? >>
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