Difference Between Drop Box and Google Drive

Google has been one of the most reputed technological firms in the whole world. Since the inception, Google has also introduced a new verb ‘Google’ that is synonymous to searching and this shows how much influence Google Inc. has on everybody in the whole wide world, not only the technical geeks. On its way to the technological dominance, Google has provided many services other than the massive search engine like Google Docs, Google Maps, Google Translate, Blogger, Google Calendar, YouTube, Google Groups etc. On top of that, Google has its own social media channel, as well, named as Google Plus and has acquired a significant consumer base in the first three months of existence. Google also has the open source mobile operating system ‘Android,’ which has been the key competitor for Apple iOS so far. Further expanding the horizons, Google also has the Google Web OS, great browser Google Chrome and an Application store that is full of useful browser applications to back up the game. In essence, Google has become something that we can’t live without.

Their new venture is the Google Drive, which is essentially a cloud storage that is accessible in cross platforms. This service is strangely similar to the leading vendor in this industry, Drop Box. Started in 2008, Drop Box has grown into a sound customer base of 50 million by the last October (2011), and they are the best in the industry in this segment of service. You can save a file in your Drop Box folder on the PC, and it will synchronize the file with the cloud storage and let you access it anywhere on any platform; at least that’s the guarantee they provide although they don’t have a Windows Mobile client up to date. We will talk about both of these services and compare them for a better understanding.

Google Drive

The recent technological advances in cloud computing have enabled us to store our information globally without having to limit the storage to a local PC at home. This enables us to access the content from anywhere in the world with such ease. Google Drive is Google’s version of cloud storage. Google provides 5GB of space right on sign up for free and further storage can be purchased as required. A yearly plan is not available right now, but the monthly plans make up the void by providing a variety of storage options. Like any cloud storage provider, Google also has multiple redundant storage facilities which ensure the protection of your data at all costs. Native apps are available for Windows and Mac desktop environments while it lacks the Linux native client. Google promises that they will provide it soon and in the meantime there are native apps like Insync to bridge the apparent gap. It also has native clients for Apple iOS, Android along with a web based interface for universal access.

The specialty behind Google Drive is its tight integration with the Google online app suite. It provides support for variety of file formats like office documents and Photoshop files to be opened through the browser. One gets the ability to share content easily through Google Drive and also enables simultaneous collaboration seamlessly. For instance, the web based app suite has additional features to show when a document is been edited by someone else and you get to instant message them right through the app suite, as well. If that’s not enough, Drive also has a revision feature in case some change was not intentionally made and so you can revert back to the original state. The viewing permission can also be set to ‘only view’ and to ‘edit’ which comes in handy. I particularly like the fact that when somebody else is working on the same document as I am, Drive even shows me the portion they are working on highlighted by a different color; that’s a pretty nifty trick if you ask me.

Drop Box

Started with a simple idea in 2008, Drop Box has leaded the idea of cloud storage because of its innovative influence. They made possible for us to use a native client, to access / share anything we wanted across any platform with a single click. That has been the push behind many who are using Drop Box. The fact that the user interface is very intuitive makes it a valuable service to have in any business solution pack.

Drop Box supports the web interface along with generic clients for Windows, Mac and Linux operating systems. It also has efficient native clients for Android, Blackberry and iOS. This vertical integration across cross platforms has given Drop Box a lot of competitive advantage over other such services. Although this is the case, Drop Box will have to innovate more and introduce some new and integral features in order to keep the service at the top as it is now with the competition we see from the technological giants.

A Brief Comparison between Google Drive and Drop Box

• The support for cross platforms differs between these two services.

• The cost breakdown for the cloud storage spaces offered differs between these two services. Monthly cost is used as the factor for this breakdown.

• Drop Box is mature and has better synchronization between cross platforms and native clients than Google Drive.

Conclusion

At the face of the introduction, Google Drive seems to be a distant competitor to Drop Box, but what we have to keep in mind is that, Google is a technological giant who shapes their products and services to accommodate consumer needs. They have made it clear that when they offer a service, Google won’t try to mimic the competition and offer every feature offered by others. Instead, it will look at an existing market and innovate a way to better serve the consumers in that market. This seems to be the case with Google Drive, as well.

Thus, as of now, Google Drive tends to fall behind Drop Box with the ease of use, cross platform support and synchronization. But Google Drive is very cost effective compared to drive and one of the things that would entice consumers to use Google Drive is the integration with other Google products and services. So you can try Google Drive now, and you may have a bad impression, you may not want it at all because of its lack of support for Linux systems, but someday in the future, Google is bound to develop Drive to the same caliber as Drop Box or even better. Until that day, Drop Box serves to be the best cloud storage for any consumer including corporate customers.