Difference Between SkyDrive and DropBox

SkyDrive vs DropBox
 

The world as we know is changing rapidly. One of the main things backing up this change is the rapid growth and penetration of technological elements in our life. When the transition from stationary PC to the Laptop happened, we needed a way to keep our documents with us when we were travelling. Later on, we wanted to access these documents using smartphones, as well. Subsequently we wanted these documents to be securely locked up somewhere so that should we lose our hard disk somehow, we still have integral files to go on without disrupting the majority of our task. This gave rise to the phenomenal offerings of cloud storage services. First it was simply a storage vault where you can upload your file and download when you need; later on these services expanded by providing native clients for your platform that can seamlessly synchronize range of files across your devices. DropBox was the premiere of this wave and subsequently major vendors like Microsoft and Google also followed their lead. Today we are going to compare Microsoft SkyDrive with DropBox in order to understand what differentiates them from one another.

Microsoft SkyDrive

Sky Drive is one of the four parts in Microsoft Windows Live services. Recently Windows 8, Windows Phone 8 and Surface Pro grabbed our attention with the innovative and unique nature and all that while Microsoft has also been making substantial changes to the supplementary services they’ve been offering which are better known as Microsoft Windows Live. SkyDrive provides cloud storage that is integrated tightly with Microsoft products like Office 2013. It also provides ample storage that anyone can use for free up to 7GB which is the largest space provided by the mainstream cloud storage providers. Microsoft is relatively new to the game although they have a proven track record for their alternative services.

SkyDrive has native clients for Windows Desktop, Windows Mobile, Apple Mac, Apple iOS and Google Android. That covers a wide spectrum of platforms only excluding Linux in the mainstream operating systems. Native clients are good at synchronization and works fine, apart from a glitch in file names. If you have file names that include characters like ‘?’, the synchronization process tend to fail until you rename the file which is not quite convenient. Countering that, Microsoft offers a range of web based office apps that can make your life a whole lot easier. You can access the files in your SkyDrive through these web office apps and modify them as you please. These apps are not as matured as Google Cloud apps are, but they certainly gets the job done for free, so we have no complains.

DropBox

Started with a simple idea in 2008, DropBox has leaded the idea of cloud storage because of its innovative influence. They made it possible for us to use a native client to access / share anything we wanted across any platform with a single click. That has been the push behind many who are using Drop Box. The fact that the user interface is very intuitive makes it a valuable service to have in any business solution pack.

DropBox supports the web interface along with generic clients for Windows, Mac and Linux operating systems. It also has efficient native clients for Android, Blackberry and iOS. This vertical integration across cross platforms has given Drop Box a lot of competitive advantage over other such services. Although this is the case, Drop Box will have to innovate more and introduce some new and integral features in order to keep the service at the top as it is now with the competition we see from the technological giants.

A Brief Comparison Between SkyDrive and DropBox

• The support for cross platforms differs between these two services.

• SkyDrive offers 7GB of free storage while DropBox only offers 2GB.

• Microsoft Sky Drive and Drop Box limit the maximum file size you can upload using the web interface to 300MB.

• Microsoft SkyDrive and DropBox have different pricing structures depending on the cloud storage offered.

 • DropBox is mature and provides better synchronization compared to Microsoft SkyDrive.

• Microsoft Sky Drive provides the ability to open various file formats through their web based app suite, whereas Drop Box doesn’t provide that service.

Conclusion

I highly doubt you are reading this comparison in order to make the decision on what is the cloud storage option for your organization (middle to large organizations; this comparison would suffice for small organizations). As such, our intention was to provide a comparison in terms of usability as a layman, and it’s a lot less likely that you’ll need 200GB cloud storage anytime sooner. We are fairly certain that you can make your selection depending on the pricing schemes as described in the comparison, but if most of your files are office documents and you may want to edit them on the go as well, Microsoft Sky Drive definitely provides a better solution. If you don’t need to open your files through the web interface, both options are equally good. But hey, both offer free storage and while you are at it, sign in for both, use the free storage options for some time and make your decision. That would ensure you are paying your well earned money for the correct provider.