Microsoft continues to expand their cloud services. That isn't really directly competing with anything.
Microsoft offer apps for iOS, OSX and Android to access files sync'd to SkyDrive. They are improving these apps. Again this isn't really directly competing with anything, except maybe other apps that offer access to SkyDrive (I'm not aware of any, although I assume they exist).
What the article is saying is "here is something analogous to iCloud for Windows users, BTW they also offer access to files from iOS/OSX"
Doesn't this just amount to Microsoft's usual FUD? As in, see, eventually this product will be everything everybody wants, and will be so much better than everybody else, that they will just go out of business on their own and recommend us to all their current customers. Please wait for us to complete development...and design...and really, we are going to start working on this pretty soon...but whatever you do, don't buy any competing product because ours is going to be SO MUCH BETTER! And we'll give you a pony.
Your forgetting part of the history. If it was not for Bill Gates, there would be no apple as we see it today period! Steve Jobs stole from xerox. When apple was on deaths doorsteps Microsoft gave Apple a substantial cash infusion, plus developed office for the mac to attract users to the platform. I am tired of the Microsoft bashing. I like both platforms for different things. Competition is good, and I would like to see both companies do well in our American economy.
You really should study up on your history and give up on the revisionist version out of MS!
If you are going to wish for things Apple discontinued, you could add the iCards or whatever they were called to the list, but it will be a waste of electrons sending a request to feedback.
1. Sugarsync offers 5GB for free and has beaten DropBox in a number of head to head comparisons - and is much cheaper than DB for big storage.
The biggest problem with Sugarsync (which I use) is the lack of block-level synch. If you change 1 character in a 30 MB Word document, the whole file goes up and down to every device. If you are a frequent saver, working in large documents can eat a lot of bandwidth (especially relevant if you have bw caps).
They seem very quiet about it. The questions are on the support boards. No answer. I have posed my own Q's and sent email to tech support. They will never respond and acknowledge the lack of block-level sync. However, it's as easy to know it's not there. Just leave the file transfer status open and make a tiny change to a big file. The whole thing goes up & down to all devices.
It looks like the next SkyDrive release does most of the stuff you mention for Windows devices.
I suppose it's like a cross between iCloud and DropBox with a few extra bits thrown in.
So it makes the WP7 devices more competitive, which is great, but it doesn't make SkyDrive a competitor to iCloud.
My point was that the headline "Microsoft to challenge iCloud with SkyDrive OS X client", as well as the statement "It remains to be seen which Windows 8 SkyDrive features will be implemented in the rumored Mac client, if any, and to what extent the service will affect iCloud." implies that SkyDrive could somehow surplant iCloud on Mac and/or iOS devices, which it cannot. The article also attempts to draw a parallel between the services by pointing out a hack that lets you abuse the service for DropBox-like functionality, ignoring the fact that file sharing is not the intended purpose of iCloud.
You browse to a folder and decide you want to delete it, but you couldn't see the links indicated here:
Or maybe you tried to select a file and delete it, but you couldn't see the links indicated here:
It wasn't set up that way last year. I read all the links on the pages at the time. The way I had to do it was through other links that took me to a page with the correct buttons to delete the files. The delete button was actually in a right click menu. It wasn't on the page.
Your smugness would apply if the pages were laid out that way when I tried their service, but it has been wasted. Thanks for going to the trouble to be smug. It was amusing.
My momma taught me to never try and have a reasonable discussion with people who post statements containing the word "hate" in 48 or so point type. So I won't even try.
Do you know anybody who has tried OSX who would rather use Vista? Part of the money I paid for that computer went to Microsoft for Vista. Most people who have commented on boards like this believe Vista was a huge rip-off. It was worse than beta software yet it was sold to the public as a complete OS. I think the word hate applies very aptly towards a company that knowingly ripped-off millions of people and businesses. I could document at least forty hours on the telephone with HP support to get things in Vista to work. Vista problems have probably cost the economy billions of dollars in lost productivity. That deserves a criminal investigation.
When I tried Skydrive it just reinforced my opinion of Microsoft products. Obviously it has been improved since I tried it but that isn't enough to make me want to use it. I pay for Box.net sharing and use Dropbox to synchronize files across three operating systems. Those work for me.
I agree with those who said that Skydrive is more like a drop box. Nobody can compete with iCloud because nobody has deep access to iOS like Apple does. At most, Skydrive can be an app, but only Apple can give iCloud deep integration across all products, including what will probably be the upcoming TV.
And for no reason at all, I will include this icon which I think is super spiffy:
Microsoft will win this one. Apple just doesn't know how to run stable Internet services. Sorry but iTunes and the appStore do not count.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Firefly7475
iCloud utilises AWS and Azure. I'm sure Apple will continue to bring more stuff in-house, but they always have those two solid mature cloud platforms to fall back on if something goes wrong.
What do you think the chances are of Microsoft utilising AWS or Google App Engine if something goes wrong
Let's not forget the Danger debacle, cause that was such overwhelming proof of Microsoft's superior cloud know how over Apple.
The mains benefit of iCloud, like MobileMe before it:
Email
To-Do
Calendar
Bookmarks
Notes
EVERYWHERE
AUTOMATICALLY
And iCloud also has the added benefits of:
iTunes Match (at additional cost)
iOS Device Backups
Photo Stream
Documents and Data (to share across devices).
Deep OS integration (iOS and Mac OS X)
Unless SkyDrive can do this, which it can't and never will be able to, it's not even close to competition.
SkyDrive and Dropbox are DATA STORAGE, iCloud is way more than JUST data storage.
That's only true when you include just the items under the "Skydrive" name. To get SkyDrive you need a windows live login and if you have one with hotmail then you do have Email, ToDo and Calendar.
The Everywhere and Automatically really depend what your devices are. If your nothing but Apple then of course Automatically is only possible with iCloud as Apple don't support anything else. If you have 1 non Apple device though your not Everywhere as iCloud isn't availiable on other platforms. With SkyDrive though you are still everywhere. So that's the main difference, on there own devices they are both Automatic and everywhere, on other devices neither are automatic and iCloud just isn't there at all.
Comments
I hope Microsoft fails and goes bankrupt. that would be best for our economy as their would be actual fair competition
We'll be bones and earth long before that ever happens.
Get some perspective, you'll be happier for it.
What???
Well... No one really.
Microsoft continues to expand their cloud services. That isn't really directly competing with anything.
Microsoft offer apps for iOS, OSX and Android to access files sync'd to SkyDrive. They are improving these apps. Again this isn't really directly competing with anything, except maybe other apps that offer access to SkyDrive (I'm not aware of any, although I assume they exist).
What the article is saying is "here is something analogous to iCloud for Windows users, BTW they also offer access to files from iOS/OSX"
Doesn't this just amount to Microsoft's usual FUD? As in, see, eventually this product will be everything everybody wants, and will be so much better than everybody else, that they will just go out of business on their own and recommend us to all their current customers. Please wait for us to complete development...and design...and really, we are going to start working on this pretty soon...but whatever you do, don't buy any competing product because ours is going to be SO MUCH BETTER! And we'll give you a pony.
You had me at FUD.
Your forgetting part of the history. If it was not for Bill Gates, there would be no apple as we see it today period! Steve Jobs stole from xerox. When apple was on deaths doorsteps Microsoft gave Apple a substantial cash infusion, plus developed office for the mac to attract users to the platform. I am tired of the Microsoft bashing. I like both platforms for different things. Competition is good, and I would like to see both companies do well in our American economy.
You really should study up on your history and give up on the revisionist version out of MS!
A "friend"?
Honestly - Scout's honour dib dab dob and all that. I didn't get round to uploading my pics
I agree entirely.
I ask that everyone who misses these features make a feature request at http://www.apple.com/feedback/icloud.html
If you are going to wish for things Apple discontinued, you could add the iCards or whatever they were called to the list, but it will be a waste of electrons sending a request to feedback.
1. Sugarsync offers 5GB for free and has beaten DropBox in a number of head to head comparisons - and is much cheaper than DB for big storage.
The biggest problem with Sugarsync (which I use) is the lack of block-level synch. If you change 1 character in a 30 MB Word document, the whole file goes up and down to every device. If you are a frequent saver, working in large documents can eat a lot of bandwidth (especially relevant if you have bw caps).
They seem very quiet about it. The questions are on the support boards. No answer. I have posed my own Q's and sent email to tech support. They will never respond and acknowledge the lack of block-level sync. However, it's as easy to know it's not there. Just leave the file transfer status open and make a tiny change to a big file. The whole thing goes up & down to all devices.
You need to read the latest info.
It looks like the next SkyDrive release does most of the stuff you mention for Windows devices.
I suppose it's like a cross between iCloud and DropBox with a few extra bits thrown in.
So it makes the WP7 devices more competitive, which is great, but it doesn't make SkyDrive a competitor to iCloud.
My point was that the headline "Microsoft to challenge iCloud with SkyDrive OS X client", as well as the statement "It remains to be seen which Windows 8 SkyDrive features will be implemented in the rumored Mac client, if any, and to what extent the service will affect iCloud." implies that SkyDrive could somehow surplant iCloud on Mac and/or iOS devices, which it cannot. The article also attempts to draw a parallel between the services by pointing out a hack that lets you abuse the service for DropBox-like functionality, ignoring the fact that file sharing is not the intended purpose of iCloud.
So let me get this straight...
You browse to a folder and decide you want to delete it, but you couldn't see the links indicated here:
Or maybe you tried to select a file and delete it, but you couldn't see the links indicated here:
It wasn't set up that way last year. I read all the links on the pages at the time. The way I had to do it was through other links that took me to a page with the correct buttons to delete the files. The delete button was actually in a right click menu. It wasn't on the page.
Your smugness would apply if the pages were laid out that way when I tried their service, but it has been wasted. Thanks for going to the trouble to be smug. It was amusing.
My momma taught me to never try and have a reasonable discussion with people who post statements containing the word "hate" in 48 or so point type. So I won't even try.
Do you know anybody who has tried OSX who would rather use Vista? Part of the money I paid for that computer went to Microsoft for Vista. Most people who have commented on boards like this believe Vista was a huge rip-off. It was worse than beta software yet it was sold to the public as a complete OS. I think the word hate applies very aptly towards a company that knowingly ripped-off millions of people and businesses. I could document at least forty hours on the telephone with HP support to get things in Vista to work. Vista problems have probably cost the economy billions of dollars in lost productivity. That deserves a criminal investigation.
When I tried Skydrive it just reinforced my opinion of Microsoft products. Obviously it has been improved since I tried it but that isn't enough to make me want to use it. I pay for Box.net sharing and use Dropbox to synchronize files across three operating systems. Those work for me.
And for no reason at all, I will include this icon which I think is super spiffy:
Microsoft will win this one. Apple just doesn't know how to run stable Internet services. Sorry but iTunes and the appStore do not count.
iCloud utilises AWS and Azure. I'm sure Apple will continue to bring more stuff in-house, but they always have those two solid mature cloud platforms to fall back on if something goes wrong.
What do you think the chances are of Microsoft utilising AWS or Google App Engine if something goes wrong
Let's not forget the Danger debacle, cause that was such overwhelming proof of Microsoft's superior cloud know how over Apple.
This looks closer to Dropbox, than iCloud.
The mains benefit of iCloud, like MobileMe before it:
- Email
- To-Do
- Calendar
- Bookmarks
- Notes
- EVERYWHERE
- AUTOMATICALLY
And iCloud also has the added benefits of:- iTunes Match (at additional cost)
- iOS Device Backups
- Photo Stream
- Documents and Data (to share across devices).
- Deep OS integration (iOS and Mac OS X)
Unless SkyDrive can do this, which it can't and never will be able to, it's not even close to competition.SkyDrive and Dropbox are DATA STORAGE, iCloud is way more than JUST data storage.
That's only true when you include just the items under the "Skydrive" name. To get SkyDrive you need a windows live login and if you have one with hotmail then you do have Email, ToDo and Calendar.
The Everywhere and Automatically really depend what your devices are. If your nothing but Apple then of course Automatically is only possible with iCloud as Apple don't support anything else. If you have 1 non Apple device though your not Everywhere as iCloud isn't availiable on other platforms. With SkyDrive though you are still everywhere. So that's the main difference, on there own devices they are both Automatic and everywhere, on other devices neither are automatic and iCloud just isn't there at all.