Google Docs to Offer Expanded Storage
Posted on 16. Jan, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey in News
Google Docs, which has had a tumultuous history, now appears to be on a roll – the software is used by people who refuse to pay for Microsoft Office and also has spread to larger enterprises such as Genentech. That means Google has a company that is 15,000 strong testing and improving their software – with updates happening in real time. Now it appears that additional storage for Docs – what many thought would be known as the mysterious GDrive is becoming a reality. As of this writing, Google Docs has strict limitations on what you can store: 500KB for text files, PowerPoint Presentations of 10MB, spreadsheets 1MB and PDF files at 10MB.
The new rules are apparently going to be much looser. The ability to store files of any size and in any format are expected and the cap will be raised from the current 250MB to 1GB. That’s still small when compared to Gmail which offers over 6GB of online storage, but it is a good start and I think that Google wants to slowly raise these levels as time goes on and more devices start requiring online storage.
From Docs:
“Over the next couple of weeks, we’re rolling out the ability to upload, store, and share any file in Google Docs. Your files will be stored in their original format and downloadable from anywhere. Uploading files to the cloud allows them to be safely stored and accessible at all times.”
These files will be able to be shared with others in a special shared folder that you can create. And just like Gmail, Google Docs also offers offline storage now as well. You can see this evidenced by the red Offline link that is in the upper right hand corner of Google Docs.
Why all these changes? Expect to see more as Google rolls out the ability for users to operate in a cloud environment. They are preparing the HTML 5 infrastructure for devices that will run Chrome OS and Android that keep most files stored in a network environment.
One Response to “Google Docs to Offer Expanded Storage”
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Cyril Gupta
16. Jan, 2010
I’ve been using Google docs since last september rather successfully. Most of my company’s content writing is done directly on Google docs right now. The unlimited file size is a good thing.
Now if they would only develop the facility to share and unshare multiple documents at once (checkbox multiple items and share/unshare them). That doesn’t work and it’s rather vital.