Google drive launched late last month gave cloud storage industry players a scare. File It Africa, an online backup and synchronizing software in Africa, however says its products still maintain a competitive edge over the Google creation.
Carla Viezee of File It Africa told HumanIPO: “Our software is principally a backup tool whereas GDrive is mostly a sharing tool with however more space to put things and access from anywhere.”
“Our response is that people look for a hassle free and simple solution for keeping records safe. We believe that people wish to spend as little time as possible on backing up, as it is time consuming and takes one away from core tasks,” she said.
She added that GDrive only allows sharing online.
GDrive’s terms and conditions are not clear on who the owner of the documents and this is an advantage to us, she said.
GDrive is a transformation of Google Docs, which allows users to share documents online. The new product enables users to sync documents in a down-loadable folder that can be uploaded the users’ accounts online. Google is yet to say how many users they have had since their launch.
She however was quick to acknowledge that Google has a large following and could be a serious competitor.
Viezee further emphasized the difference in Gdrive from File it Africa offerings saying FIA has sharing tool that is however different from GDrive since it allows sharing through a link after which users can download into the computer and work on the document.
Box.net co-founder Aaron Levie stated they have paid attention to Google and Gdrive.
“We think GDrive is actually going to be a meaningful player in market. I wouldn’t discredit what it’s going to be able to do,” Levie said.
He added that Box.net would aim at being more of a platform, where other developers would build applications on top of it, rather than just offer online document storage and backup.
