Microsoft's 5GB virtual hard drive, Skydrive

Microsoft's 5GB online virtual hard drive, known as Skydrive, has not been talked about much since its global launch in May 2008, but it is an important evolution in the online services world, as it is the first free online storage service from one of the big three (Google, Yahoo and Microsoft) online players.

It is significant that Microsoft has launched a general purpose free online file storage service before Google. Google, despite having a much vaunted and impressive array of data centers, constituting the largest in the world, for hosting terabytes of user information, has not yet been able to create a service such as this that it feels is good enough for mass consumption.

How does Microsoft's service perform?

Surprisingly well. I say surprisingly because I have grown accustomed to only experiencing a seamless web 2.0 experience with Google, but there are no weak links in Microsoft's Sky Drive service. It provides an intuitive AJAX interface, doesn't show any glitches, and has all the storage space I could want online.

If there was something that Microsoft doesn't do as well with Skydrive as Google does with its services is augment it with a complete set of complementary services. With Google, I get the whole package at one central location, my Gmail account, from where I can easily access Google Docs and Google Calendar. Microsoft right now simply doesn't have a set of online services as good as Google's that can serve as a central pit stop for all of my online data management needs. This is not due to any fault of Skydrive, but it does affect Skydrive's usability nonetheless.

The next big challenge for Microsoft is increasing the number of useful online services it provides in order to 1) create "the package" for users and 2) improve its reputation so that users like me come to associate Microsoft's online service with exceptional utility and convenience like they currently do with Google's.