30gigs.com just introduced a new email service with–guess how much!–30 gigs of storage. The company also plans a virtual “file locker,” which would give customers the ability to easily store and retrieve files on servers managed by 30gigs.com. Moreover, 30gigs.com isn’t done–their “main goal” is to increase the per account storage allotment to 50-100 gigs (I guess they’ll change their name). And, of course, the service is free. (Disclaimer: I haven’t invested in 30gigs.com.)
By themselves, the products 30gigs.com offers aren’t particularly innovative. Gmail already offers free email with 2.5+ gigs of storage (increasing daily), and there are hacks to turn a Gmail account into a networked hard drive.
That notwithstanding, 30gigs.com is noteworthy for two main reasons. First, it shows that storage is really cheap. Second (and more interesting), thanks to services like 30gigs.com, I believe we’ll soon have a functional thin client/network computer. This is important because thin clients can be extremely useful in the right circumstances. For example, relative to “traditional” thick clients (ie an Intel box with Windows), thin clients tend to be far cheaper and easier to manage.
Larry Ellison, among others, has promoted the “thin client architecture” for years–to little effect. Due to recent market developments and technical innovations, though, the thin client vision may finally be viable. First, many providers now offer high-speed internet coverage, which is needed to transfer the huge quantity of application and user data that thin clients and the servers that power them require (interestingly, Google now plans to offer free high-speed wireless access. You may wonder why an advertising company would want to do that–it actually makes good sense. I’ll offer my theory as to why in a moment). Second, thanks to Ajax and other emerging technologies, there is now a wide variety of fully-functional web applications providing word processing, spreadsheet capabilities, calendars, and more.
Here’s where 30gigs.com comes in. Using the “file locker,” customers now have an online disk drive in which files can be stored. 30 gigs is a lot of storage–enough for most users for a long, long time.
Still, there are a few missing pieces:
- Though much progress has been made, we need more complete and fully documented APIs. It’s still difficult to use most hosted storage solutions (including, but not limited to, 30gigs.com) with most web-applications; the integration isn’t there. For technically savvy users, this doesn’t pose much of an issue. For the average consumer, though, complex workflow is a deal killer.
- As the quantity and importance of digital data in our lives continues to increase, we’ll want better tools to authenticate and manage identity and reputation. For example, if you have accounts with multiple online services, do you want to separately provide personal data to each? Or, would you prefer to store sensitive data with a single, trusted company and let them share data with other companies–but only when you permit them to do so? Similarly, if you want to buy a product from a particular vendor, how should you know if the vendor is trustworthy? This is a rich topic, worthy of a separate discussion. If you’re interested in learning more, take a look at Sxip.
- For services like 30gigs.com to remain solvent, they need sustainable revenue models. Consumer-facing web services companies often rely on ads. Contextual and behavioral targeting solutions could still use improvement (though, to be fair, they are getting better at a rapid pace).
Back to Google: I said I’d comment on why they’re offering free WiFi. My guess is that they’ll soon offer a complete suite of web-based applications comparable to Microsoft Office (this isn’t a novel insight; TechCrunch even hears rumors that Google will release an Ajax-enabled Office suite sometime this year). Increasing broadband penetration is good for Google, as it increases the size of their target market.
I also predict that Google will start charging users directly for premium products. It might make sense for them to offer entry and professional levels of “GOffice.” The free version might have limited functionality and ads, while the fee-based alternative would come packed with complete capabilities and no ads. Of course, this is just speculation on my part.
The biggest winner here is the consumer–we get lots of new choices. One potential loser: Microsoft. Considering that about half of the company’s revenue–and almost all of their net income–come from sales of Windows and Office, they have a lot to worry about. Still, they’ve successfully pulled through tough situations before, so I wouldn’t count them out yet.
Update: 30gigs.com seems to be having service problems. As Om says: “approach with caution.”
Update2 (10/4/05): MailNation is now offering 1000GB email accounts (via Om).
I felt your last blog on web storage is written espeically for me….
I agree with “a thin client/network” thinking. I think Gmail show people a simply yet connected application is a better subsititute for heavy and isolated window app.
This trend also creates a lot of opportunites for people like me…, at microsoft’s cost.
I hope to talk to you on tuesday….
–Xin Chen
founder of Gbaopan
[Your space @ web]
Left by Xin Chen on October 4th, 2005