Google Drive launches with 5GB of free space

 

After months of speculations and leaks, Google today officially released Google Drive, its cloud storage and collaboration service. Google Drive will offer 5GB of free online storage, which will be linked to the user’s Google account (including Google+ and Google Apps for business accounts). Read on.

While Google Drive will certainly compete with similar cloud storage apps like Dropbox, Box.net and SkyDrive, the real target for Google is Microsoft. Rather than baking it as a pure cloud storage service, Google has integrated it with Google Docs or if I may, Google Docs has been integrated into Google Drive. It has an installable app for desktop (Windows and Mac) as well as an Android app for smartphones and tablets. An iOS app is also on the way. Google is marketing Drive as a collaboration tool where users can do much more than just store files.

With Google Drive, users can not only edit stored documents but also search within scanned documents in PDF or photographs using Optical Character Recognition service or even search for photographs using Google Goggles. In a future update, users will be able to save attachments directly to Google Drive from their Gmail accounts. Google is also talking about apps that will enable users to do much more on Google Drive, for instance editing videos using WeVideo. You can check out more apps for Google Drive here.

If 5GB is not enough, users can also buy more space starting from $2.49/month for 25GB, $4.99 per month for 100GB or $49,99 for 1TB! We are currently trying out Google Drive and will be coming up with our first impressions shortly. While Google Drive might not put Dropbox and the likes out of business (yet), it will certainly make their staying alive a little difficult. Check out the Google Drive demo video below.