On Monday, Microsoft announced an overhaul to its Skydrive storage service. Here’s a rundown of the new features:
– Microsoft updated its SkyDrive iOS app to include iPad support, file management, sharing via Web links, and multiple photo and video uploads.
– Users running SkyDrive on a Windows PC can now access their entire hard drive–not just the files stored on SkyDrive–from SkyDrive.com after a two-step authentication process.
– Microsoft decreased the amount of free storage it will offer to new users, from 25 GB to 7 GB, but removed the previous 5 GB limit on desktop syncing. Existing users can hang onto their free 25 GB of storage–without limits on syncing–by logging into the Manage Storage page at SkyDrive.com.
Although there’s no shortage of other online storage services, Google is likely to make a splash due to name recognition alone. Google could also gain an advantage by tying online storage to other Google products, such as Chrome, Gmail, and Android. In any case, it seems like we’re already in for a cloud storage feature war, so stay tuned.
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