TMCnet News
Google to be world's hard drive(Business, The (London) (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Mar. 12--Not content with being the search engine of choice, Google wants to be the world's hard drive. The company last week inadvertently revealed plans to become a repository for its users' computer data in a note found by a blogger. The document appears to have been part of a presentation by Google chief executive Eric Schmidt. The plan is for a "Gdrive" that would give Google users access to their data from any internet-enabled device and could make Google the biggest information storage company in the world. The idea is not new in the IT industry. The best-known proponent of remote storage on this scale is Scott McNealy, head of computing giant Sun Microsystems. For years, he has preached the gospel of the "thin client" -- meaning pared-down PCs that connect with a powerful server. This philosophy has put McNealy into direct conflict with his arch-rival Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, who sees the PC itself as the main computing facility. Schmidt's Gdrive would also bring him into direct conflict with Gates were Google to market the idea. By transferring computing from the desktop, Google would be cutting Microsoft-powered PCs out of the loop. This would explain Schmidt's desire to keep plans for the Gdrive under wraps. But there could be other reasons. One would be the sheer scale of the project. If successful, the service would involve Google in the most ambitious computing project in history. Remote storage of data transmitted across the internet generally means the creation of server farms -- colonies of powerful computers. The cost of building farms on this scale would be astronomical. But it could be that Google has faith in the computer storage industry's ability to deliver efficiencies of scale. Google would not be alone in framing a strategy based on the falling cost of remote data storage. Other companies looking at providing remote storage facilities for consumer data include electronics giant Apple. The market -- troubled by security issues surrounding Google -- reacted badly to Google's presentation. The company's bowing to the Chinese authorities and the US government's encroachments on online data have led to suspicion of remote storage. Research firm Gartner recently issued a warning to businesses concerning a feature on Google Desktop that allows users to temporarily store some of their data on Google servers. There are growing fears, particularly in the US, that data held on a remote Google server could be made available through a subpoena. A search warrant would be required to access the same information held on a hard drive. Although it appears Google has put its Gdrive on ice, the leak is an indication of its ambitions. The day after the news about Schmidt's presentation, Google scored another own-goal with the inadvertent publication of more internal information. The company published what appeared to be its 2006 advertising revenue projections saying revenue would grow from $6bn (3.4bn, E4.9bn) in 2005 to $9.5bn in 2007, but that advertising margins would be squeezed. The company is trying to distance itself from the mistake, saying the efigures were speaker notes for internal use. |