Amazon's pricing here is the same as SpiderOak's, and Dropbox has been competing with us in the backup/sync space this whole time.
The industry has seen many of these these simple "cloud drive" products fail. I think the first was Xdrive. They just don't have the local response speed that users expect. I doubt Amazon will fail here, but as it is, this is not much in the way of competition for Dropbox or the rest of the sync industry. It's a different product all together.
No-worry syncing is what distinguishing Dropbox for me. Of course, I'm just one of their free-loaders, and come to think of it I may not find Dropbox as useful in a couple of months when I'm finally done with school assignments forever.
This is nice but doesn't strike me as competition for Dropbox in any way.
The strength of Dropbox is in the deceptively dead simple client interface that lets it work without you having to think about it.
Correct. There's no Mac/PC client that emulates a local drive/folder (yet). Just an Air MP3 uploadeder app and a web based file upload for other types of files.
I wonder if you could isolate the S3 bucket used and use existing S3 clients. Of course then you might as well use raw S3.
Take a look at point 5.2 of the Term of Use.
Link: http://amzn.to/eeSaB3
Quote: "
5.2 Our Right to Access Your Files. You give us the right to access, retain, use and disclose your account information and Your Files: to provide you with technical support and address technical issues; to investigate compliance with the terms of this Agreement, enforce the terms of this Agreement and protect the Service and its users from fraud or security threats; or as we determine is necessary to provide the Service or comply with applicable law." ...
not that encouraging imho.
I don't ever upload any data onto these cloud file services that I don't encrypt locally first. It's inevitable imo that someone will eventually get into the servers at Dropbox, Amazon, or whatever. I think it's really naive to upload confidential data without making sure it's securely encrypted first.
I don't think Amazon is looking to compete with Dropbox but really iTunes in the cloud. For them, competing with Dropbox would be like shooting themselves in the foot. As long as Dropbox remains on S3, Amazon makes more money the more successful Dropbox gets. If they start to compete directly Dropbox will surely move to a cheaper solution and Amazon will loose a pretty large contract. They would also loose some trust with developers who feel Amazon might smash them at any moment. If Dropbox ever moved as they probably will, I think Amazon may consider competing, but even then don't seem to be in the business of creating client software (exception kindle).
You have made a really insightful comment, but I struggle to read it without wincing because of the misspellings.
lose, v. to part with something
loose, adj. not tight.
So yeah, Amazon might lose a large contract and might lose trust with developers. Sorry if it's a bit off-topic but I just wanted to mention how off-putting it is.
I'm curious what they mean by "secure", since they seem to be trumpeting it as a major selling point. They say that all communication goes through HTTPS, which is nice, but they don't say if the information is encrypted on their servers as well. Can someone who gets a VM running on the same machine use clever side-channel trickery to peek at my files? Can a government get Amazon to quietly reveal all my data?
What would be really nice is something where files get stored fully encrypted, with the key derived client-side from your username and password, and the connections all use HTTPS. (Or something similar. I'm not a security expert, so take this with a grain of salt.)
"Fully encrypted, with the key derived client-side from your username and password" is easier said than done. It means that the key is as weak as your password and that you need to download a special client or plug-in on every device you want to read your files from.
That key will almost certainly be cached and persisted on a device. Otherwise, you'd need to enter a password every time you need to decrypt a blob of data. That means you need some way to revoke a key when you lose a device. You'll also need some key recovery mechanism when users inevitably forget their password.
Sharing files effectively becomes a key distribution problem. Another consideration is that you can't just upload diffs of files when they change or easily perform data deduplication.
I'm kinda bemused at the idea that 5GB is enough for my music collection or even some reasonable portion of it. I mean think about it: who here really gets by with a 4GB (or even 8GB) MP3 player?
I'd probably need 200GB ($200/year). A more reasonable person would probably be fine with 20 or 50GB ($20/50 per year).
I'm not sure I understand the business model and the hype behind cloud syncing of music though. What is the point? If you're going to copy onto an MP3 player you'll need a local copy. So the use cases are:
1. On the Web;
2. On networked mobiles; and
3. As a form of backup.
Well (1) is covered quite well with Grooveshark. I can find most things I want there and it's an awful lot cheaper (up to free).
(2) I don't think makes a lot of sense given the high cost of mobile data. Maybe in the future mobile data will be an awful lot cheaper but there are fundamental limitations with wireless bandwidth that I think will make that very difficult.
There are many solutions for (3). In terms of raw storage, Amazon's prices are pretty cheap. But backup misses the point entirely I think.
When I buy digital content of any sort I don't want to back it up. I want to be able to recover it easily and simply. iTunes for example only allows downloading movies once (is that right?). If so, I'm just never going to buy movies that way. If I pay for it and can watch what I download any number of times, why can't I download it again if I accidentally lose it?
So iTunes and Amazon MP3s need this feature: log onto my account and click a link that says "download all purchased tracks".
At that point I don't need backup of any kind (for my digital content).
I think the only business model that makes sense is flat-rate subscriptions. You don't store your own music. The provider simply has all the music. This solves a lot of storage problems for the provider (meaning 1000 people share the same copy of the song rather than each uploading and storing it individually).
I can see how they'll get some scale here by having duplicates of some songs (particularly iTunes and Amazon bought MP3s). It'd be interesting to know how much saved space they have from deduplication.
At this point, it looks to me like Amazon is going to offer an Android device in the not-so-distant future. They're quite clearly following the Apple/iTunes/iPod strategy: "Get the software pieces out there and performing so integration with the final hardware is seamless and painless".
So the fact that it duplicates some parts of existing software doesn't much matter. What matters is whether it's a focused and refined first-party solution for that eventual device.
It simply isn't competing for the people who know about and downloaded and set up an account for Dropbox/Grooveshark/etc. It would be the built-in feature that's sitting there waiting for you, automatically integrated to your existing Amazon account and "Just Works".
Also, the small size seems (to me) to be a beta sort of limitation. I'd be surprised if the final hardware launch doesn't include an upgrade to 50 or more gig of space just for buying the hardware.
So, yes, it really is just a sort of Grooveshark/Dropbox/iTunes-Cloud-Sync sort of solution that doesn't knock anyone's socks off via the feature checklist. But if the integration with the final device is tight, I don't think that matters at all.
Well, all the songs you buy at amazon get stored for free. So that addresses some of the points you made.
Since the storage gets upgraded to 20Gb after you buy an album it would be at least enough space for my music.
I think Amazon is giving us another way do to it, not the best or only way to do it. I would probably put 5GB of my favorite music to listen to when I don't happen to have my iPod around...and continue to sync files on Dropbox.
Storage price still 12x more then traditional harddrive backup(1TB=1000$). That 12x is what you are paying for cloud value added service. Prices should be at least half in order for consumer market to take off.It will come.
In the mean time, still waiting for revamped MobileMe. An O/S integrated cloud service seems to me much way better than any others. Airdrop might be the interface for all filesharing solutions in MAC devices.
Dropbox will transparently sync a folder on your computer which makes it as integrated with the OS as your local file system. How much more integration do you need? Are there some system calls that the Darwin kernel could implement to make the integration tighter?
I didn't really notice it till I read this comment, but considering their long-available AWS Console is also a flash app, it makes sense, and it sure doesn't seem like that this is all the surprise to dropbox that people elsewhere on this thread are talking about.
"Half the price of dropbox, this is just begging for a kick ass desktop/mobile app."
And I want a pony.
No client sync software, no sharing. I think the Dropbox folks will sleep well at night.
Smooth client software is half the value of paying for Dropbox and I don't see an Amazon side project challenging Dropbox in client usability anytime soon.
This looks more like a middle finger to any eventual iTunes cloud strategy.
Dropbox is on Amazon. You're paying for the kickass desktop/mobile app. Sure, I wish it was less, or that you could get more than 100GB…but this isn't a replacement.
Just have to remember this tidbit: "Unless you set your account to auto-renew to a paid plan, the 20 GB plan will revert to a free plan one year from the date of your MP3 album purchase." I'm pretty certain that Amazon will make sure to let you know well ahead of time. But I'm only "pretty certain", not "completely certain".
Yeah I was expecting that. Something that was more or less a drop-in replacement for Dropbox. Plus the bonus of streaming with Cloud Player. No doubt Amazon wanted to get it out there in the hands of customers and beat Apple and the WWDC. As long as they keep improving it in the next few months I don't think anyone will remember that they launched with a MVC.
I think it is still more expensive than Google to store photos and documents.
Google storage plans are almost a quarter of what Amazon is charging for! For 20GB you pay $20/yr and with Google it's just $5 (for 20GB).
Have a look - https://www.google.com/accounts/PurchaseStorage
Out of curiosity, do you know of a local client or tool that can mount my Google storage locally? I/O to it is a serious PIA through the web interface compared to my smaller but easier to use Dropbox.
I cant remember for sure but i'm assuming you would use google docs to store any file you like? I seem to remember a while ago they opened google docs to any file.
S3 is a great service don't get me wrong. But for relatively low transaction data like backup and sync not only is the pricing high but Dropbox also have a vested interest that as they grow they do not depend on a 3rd party for what is no doubt the largest single cost of providing their service.
Currently limited to a web interface and requiring the use of flash. No option for a basic uploader like Dropbox?
I assume desktop clients will eventually arrive along with smartphone apps.
No doubt Amazon has the resources to compete with Dropbox. Can Dropbox fight back against such a Behemoth? Customer loyalty aside, what can Dropbox do to stay ahead of Amazon?
If they let me upload and download files using an API instead of browser and all that CAPTCHA nonsense I would actually invest time and maybe some money to develop a native client for this service.
But considering the current experience of 'storing a file' I'm better off sending myself an email, let alone using Dropbox.
It would be very surprising to me if PaulG or anybody else at YC approved Dropbox's application without receiving what they believed to be a satisfactory answer to a question along the lines of "What happens when Amazon becomes your competition?"
[+] [-] marcamillion|15 years ago|reply
Should be interesting to see how they respond in the coming days - if at all.
I hope Dropbox realizes that they can't compete with their supplier on price - so they need to differentiate themselves on value.
These prices are seriously ridiculous. 50% lower across the board. Kinda messed up - but I am in no hurry to leave dropbox any time soon.
Keep doing what you do dropbox. I am rooting for you.
[+] [-] rarrrrrr|15 years ago|reply
The industry has seen many of these these simple "cloud drive" products fail. I think the first was Xdrive. They just don't have the local response speed that users expect. I doubt Amazon will fail here, but as it is, this is not much in the way of competition for Dropbox or the rest of the sync industry. It's a different product all together.
[+] [-] baddox|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] statictype|15 years ago|reply
Amazon isn't addressing that here.
[+] [-] jschuur|15 years ago|reply
I wonder if you could isolate the S3 bucket used and use existing S3 clients. Of course then you might as well use raw S3.
[+] [-] n0on3|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wladimir|15 years ago|reply
If you store encrypted files with them (and not store the encryption key in the same place) I guess it's not really an issue.
[+] [-] yaix|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cookiecaper|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] todd3834|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mryall|15 years ago|reply
lose, v. to part with something
loose, adj. not tight.
So yeah, Amazon might lose a large contract and might lose trust with developers. Sorry if it's a bit off-topic but I just wanted to mention how off-putting it is.
[+] [-] pjscott|15 years ago|reply
What would be really nice is something where files get stored fully encrypted, with the key derived client-side from your username and password, and the connections all use HTTPS. (Or something similar. I'm not a security expert, so take this with a grain of salt.)
[+] [-] sweis|15 years ago|reply
That key will almost certainly be cached and persisted on a device. Otherwise, you'd need to enter a password every time you need to decrypt a blob of data. That means you need some way to revoke a key when you lose a device. You'll also need some key recovery mechanism when users inevitably forget their password.
Sharing files effectively becomes a key distribution problem. Another consideration is that you can't just upload diffs of files when they change or easily perform data deduplication.
[+] [-] epochwolf|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dfischer|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ryandvm|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cletus|15 years ago|reply
I'd probably need 200GB ($200/year). A more reasonable person would probably be fine with 20 or 50GB ($20/50 per year).
I'm not sure I understand the business model and the hype behind cloud syncing of music though. What is the point? If you're going to copy onto an MP3 player you'll need a local copy. So the use cases are:
1. On the Web;
2. On networked mobiles; and
3. As a form of backup.
Well (1) is covered quite well with Grooveshark. I can find most things I want there and it's an awful lot cheaper (up to free).
(2) I don't think makes a lot of sense given the high cost of mobile data. Maybe in the future mobile data will be an awful lot cheaper but there are fundamental limitations with wireless bandwidth that I think will make that very difficult.
There are many solutions for (3). In terms of raw storage, Amazon's prices are pretty cheap. But backup misses the point entirely I think.
When I buy digital content of any sort I don't want to back it up. I want to be able to recover it easily and simply. iTunes for example only allows downloading movies once (is that right?). If so, I'm just never going to buy movies that way. If I pay for it and can watch what I download any number of times, why can't I download it again if I accidentally lose it?
So iTunes and Amazon MP3s need this feature: log onto my account and click a link that says "download all purchased tracks".
At that point I don't need backup of any kind (for my digital content).
I think the only business model that makes sense is flat-rate subscriptions. You don't store your own music. The provider simply has all the music. This solves a lot of storage problems for the provider (meaning 1000 people share the same copy of the song rather than each uploading and storing it individually).
I can see how they'll get some scale here by having duplicates of some songs (particularly iTunes and Amazon bought MP3s). It'd be interesting to know how much saved space they have from deduplication.
Anyway, am I missing something here?
[+] [-] roc|15 years ago|reply
At this point, it looks to me like Amazon is going to offer an Android device in the not-so-distant future. They're quite clearly following the Apple/iTunes/iPod strategy: "Get the software pieces out there and performing so integration with the final hardware is seamless and painless".
So the fact that it duplicates some parts of existing software doesn't much matter. What matters is whether it's a focused and refined first-party solution for that eventual device.
It simply isn't competing for the people who know about and downloaded and set up an account for Dropbox/Grooveshark/etc. It would be the built-in feature that's sitting there waiting for you, automatically integrated to your existing Amazon account and "Just Works".
Also, the small size seems (to me) to be a beta sort of limitation. I'd be surprised if the final hardware launch doesn't include an upgrade to 50 or more gig of space just for buying the hardware.
So, yes, it really is just a sort of Grooveshark/Dropbox/iTunes-Cloud-Sync sort of solution that doesn't knock anyone's socks off via the feature checklist. But if the integration with the final device is tight, I don't think that matters at all.
[+] [-] bane|15 years ago|reply
Depending on their phone they could probably just get a 32GB SD Card and carry their whole collection around with them.
[+] [-] amurmann|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jcampbell1|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thekevan|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] orionlogic|15 years ago|reply
In the mean time, still waiting for revamped MobileMe. An O/S integrated cloud service seems to me much way better than any others. Airdrop might be the interface for all filesharing solutions in MAC devices.
[+] [-] mustpax|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JCB_K|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ch0wn|15 years ago|reply
Bye.
[+] [-] magic_haze|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pat2man|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] blocke|15 years ago|reply
And I want a pony.
No client sync software, no sharing. I think the Dropbox folks will sleep well at night.
Smooth client software is half the value of paying for Dropbox and I don't see an Amazon side project challenging Dropbox in client usability anytime soon.
This looks more like a middle finger to any eventual iTunes cloud strategy.
[+] [-] ihodes|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ck2|15 years ago|reply
http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/?docId=1000667531
[+] [-] AdamGibbins|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ScottWhigham|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dfischer|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jmatt|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] amitagrawal|15 years ago|reply
Google storage plans are almost a quarter of what Amazon is charging for! For 20GB you pay $20/yr and with Google it's just $5 (for 20GB). Have a look - https://www.google.com/accounts/PurchaseStorage
Am I missing something?
[+] [-] bane|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TamDenholm|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] phillco|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TheSwede75|15 years ago|reply
S3 is a great service don't get me wrong. But for relatively low transaction data like backup and sync not only is the pricing high but Dropbox also have a vested interest that as they grow they do not depend on a 3rd party for what is no doubt the largest single cost of providing their service.
[+] [-] navs|15 years ago|reply
No doubt Amazon has the resources to compete with Dropbox. Can Dropbox fight back against such a Behemoth? Customer loyalty aside, what can Dropbox do to stay ahead of Amazon?
Can't wait to see how far this evolves.
[+] [-] Genmai|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] znt|15 years ago|reply
But considering the current experience of 'storing a file' I'm better off sending myself an email, let alone using Dropbox.
[+] [-] campo|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pestaa|15 years ago|reply
That alone will put Dropbox in the top of the game if it's not already there, as tons of devs will rush to develop 3rd party apps for it.
The same doesn't apply to ACD, yet.
[+] [-] delineal|15 years ago|reply