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Microsoft recommends that if you have a business need to share documents that you use SharePoint or Live Mesh instead. SkyDrive is ideal for storing personal photos and documents. Table 2 compares some of the key features of the highest tier service offerings from Dropbox, Box, and SkyDrive. Dropbox and SkyDrive require you to download an application to your client if you wish to upload a file greater than 300MB. This makes it simple for non-technical folks like my mother to share large files. The reason is that with Box I can upload 1GB files (2GB if you have their tier 3 service) from the browser. If you are sharing large files, such as videos, then I particularly like Box. Dropbox also has a wonderfully simple “drag and drop” user interface, making it intuitive for most users. Dropbox clearly wins on price, and for many price sensitive users, Dropbox is a great solution. You will also see that Dropbox, Box, and SkyDrive offer a tiered service, to enable you to get more storage for a higher monthly fee. In table 1, you will see that Microsoft SkyDrive offers the most “free” storage, and what is particularly nice is that SkyDrive Wave 5 will include unlimited storage for all your photos and office documents.ĭropboxBoxSkyDriveFree Storage2 GB5 GB7 GB Let’s look at the size of available storage first.
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It also explains when you should or should not use these services. This article looks at three of the most popular online file storage cloud services: Dropbox vs Skydrive vs Box comparing the storage, sharing and security features. Concerns range from people eavesdropping on over-the-air transmissions at public Wi-Fi hotspot locations, to the risk that information stored in the cloud is vulnerable to attack. This introduces a proliferation of security concerns. Employees that use their personal electronic devices such as smart phones, tablets, and eReaders to communicate and share personal information in the cloud, are using the same cloud services to share business data. The CIO of IBM recently asked employees to stop using some public cloud services due to security concerns.
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