A lot of
rumours surrounding Google Drive's launch have been floating in the air off late. Now reports from
The Next Web suggest that the search giant's cloud-based storage service is likely to launch next week, offering 5GB of free storage to all users. Users will be able to upgrade as well, though, obviously, there is no official word on it yet. The service will be accessible at drive.google.com.
Folks at The Next Web also have reason to believe that while Windows integration will be easy, Mac users might have some trouble getting the Google Drive icon on their system. It is expected to work in desktop folders for both Windows and Mac machines.
Techcrunch, however, seems to have got its hands on the Mac version of the Google Drive app, which, right now, doesn't do much since the service isn't enabled yet.
What will be interesting to see is how Google Drive stands up against rivals such as Dropbox, which currently offers 2GB of free cloud storage just by signing-up (and more when you refer additional customers). In addition, companies like HTC have partnered with Dropbox to offer upto 25GB of extra storage for those who own the One series devices.
It is needless to say that cloud wars have just begun with players like Apple, Microsoft and Amazon having made their presence felt with iCloud, SkyDrive and Cloud Drive respectively. Whether or not Google Drive steps ahead of current competition still remains to be seen.