Microsoft Revamping SkyDrive

Windows 8 is drawing near, and with it comes tighter integration with Microsoft's cloud storage service SkyDrive. Because of its increased visibility, Microsoft is revamping SkyDrive to a more modern design, and is updating the SkyDrive apps for desktop PCs and Android devices. "SkyDrive’s revamped home page embraces the same tile-based design aesthetic as Microsoft’s other new and upcoming products, including Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8. Microsoft previously referred to that aesthetic as 'Metro,' but plans on giving it a new name at an unannounced future point. ... SkyDrive users can flick for a more detailed view of files, including dates modified, sharing status, and size. In terms of features, there’s the ability to search within SkyDrive for pretty much any term, including content within Word and other Office documents. Microsoft has also shifted common commands (creating and sharing folders, for example) to the toolbar that runs along the top of the SkyDrive interface.

Comments

Re:Name Change?

[casings]

Metro is the name that has to change not SkyDrive.

Disgusting.

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

This isn't specific to Skydrive, it's a defect of other 'cloud storage' things as well; but why the hell would I want an "app" on my desktop for something that is supposed to be a filesystem?

Why would I use an application-specific re-implementation of things like 'search' and 'metadata display'? That's just perverse. I can understand that, if you need a UI that works in just about any browser, with download links and a little xmlhttprequest upload box, for basic just-need-to-grab-that-file-to-print-it-out type needs; but a desktop "app"?

Is it too hard for Microsoft to expose their own service as a filesystem?

Re:Disgusting.

[DigiShaman]

Call me old fashioned. But this whole idea throwing personal and corporate data to the "cloud" doesn't resonate well with me. I find the entire concept to be... well, unsettling from a security standpoint. Online systems have been and do continue to get hacked.

No sir, I don't trust cloud technology.

Re:Disgusting.

[Anonymous Coward]

okay. I will be that guy... the AC who explains something then gets ignored:
it is exposed as part of the FS. it is treated like a drive mounted under an NTS folder. it is named "Skydrive". with me so far? good.
it ALSO has an app. the app is really quite useful if you want to look at files on another machine that are not explicitly copied to sky. it is also nice for viewing stuff from the sky on another computer.

so, you are correct, both of you. they also did this. the app is nice for other reasons and makes things cute and ties the entire experience together.

consider it like this: just because you have an nfs mount, it does not mean there may not be reasons to use sftp or a webserver to move files to and from that mounted location.

thank you. please feel free to ignore this as AC posted it and it is not simply shaming MS for being 'dumb'.

Re:In Unrelated News

[Anonymous Coward]

Serious question, why is it a "turd"?

I don’t see anything obviously wrong with SkyDrive.

Unless you’re saying because it’s by Microsoft, there for it must be bad.
If so wouldn't that be considered trolling?

Seems like on Slashdot the difference between "trolling" and "funny" dependent on if you’re in the cool camp or not.
Serious question, why is it a "turd"?

I dont see anything obviously wrong with SkyDive.
Unless your saying because its by Microsoft, there for it must be bad.
Wouldn't that be considered trolling?
Perhaps the diffraence between "trolling" and "funny" is dependant on if your in the cool camp.

Re:Name Change?

[Sponge Bath]

I hope they change the UI name from Metro to "Annie's Boobs". That would be monkeyrific!

Skydrive still useless compared to Dropbox

[Swampash]

LAN Sync: with Skydrive if I move 50gigs of data into the shared folder of my iMac, my iMac uploads that 50gigs into the cloud over my DSL connection and then my Macbook downloads that 50gigs from the cloud over my DSL connection and then my old PowerMac downloads that 50gigs from the cloud over my DSL connection. Dropbox will just copy the 50gigs to the other machines over the gigabit ethernet they're all plugged in to since they're all in the same room.

Differential upload: with Skydrive if I change one byte in an 8gig DVD image then that 8gigs of data gets uploaded into the cloud. Dropbox uploads the one byte.

Get public link: right click on a file in Dropbox, get link for sharing with people. A killer feature that Skydrive just doesn't have.

Re:Skydrive still useless compared to Dropbox

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows Live Mesh did this and was much more advanced than both DropBox AND SkyDrive. Aside from LAN syncing, it also let you sync ANY folder on any drive, not just those in some 'special' DropBox/SkyDrive folder. Also one of my big gripes with DropBox is that shared content from other people uses up my quota, not so with Mesh - the service only stores the file one, why bill 5 different people's quotas? Storing data in the cloud is just like on another PC, you can select to do it, or no -. I used it to sync 300GB of media directly between my work and home machines (initial sync was done at home). I can't do that unless I pay DropBox/whoever for 300GB. Admittedly MS phased out Mesh in favour of SkyDrive in the latest 'Windows Essentials' pack, but I've been vocal in contacting reps @ MS about replacing Mesh with what is (currently) an inferior product. Mesh is/was a great product, MS just sucked at bringing it to people's attention.

Re:Skydrive still useless compared to Dropbox

[shutdown -p now]

Get public link: right click on a file in Dropbox, get link for sharing with people. A killer feature that Skydrive just doesn't have.

It does now.

Re:Skydrive still useless compared to Dropbox

[tgd]

Mesh is/was a great product, MS just sucked at bringing it to people's attention.

Or, they realized it gave you too much control over your own data...

Don't fall into the trap of attributing strange things Microsoft does to nefarious intents, athough that's the knee-jerk at Slashdot. The reality is that corporate politics and turf battles are the real cause of most of these things. When you have two products coming out of two business groups or parts of the organization under two different senior leaders, the losers are the consumers. Much of what people tend to attribute to some sort of centralized scheming on the part of Microsoft is really just a result of a compensation system that (at senior levels) heavily rewards looking out for yourself above all else. Silverlight's fall from grace, for example, is simply because of Sinofsky ending up with the ear of Ballmer and the associated power that brings.

Re:Name Change?

[RaceProUK]

£10 MS replaces the Metro name with 'Tiles'. It's as imaginative as calling the OS itself 'Windows'.