Google has announced that they have purchased Writely. Great move. I can actually take credit for sending that as a suggestion to Google a few months ago. Maybe they didn’t directly act on my suggestion, but the synergy was immediately apparent to me. Here you’ve got a company that hopes to put all the information in the world online. Recent leaks from them make it clear that they plan online storage in the near future. This works nicely. What’s the point of just storing your data if you need to download it to work with it?
This will actually lead to a whole class of tools. Office productivity applications are only the first step. If my documents and spreadsheets can be viewed and manipulated directly in the browser from my online repository, then I’ll be very happy. The built-in collaboration features of Writely are a nice addition, and a good competitive response to the new similar features in Office 12 (2006 is it?).
I look forward to the day when I can sync up Picasa with an online repository, and stop worrying about which computer houses my files. My current solution is keeping my files on an external hard drive. The reasoning is that I can easily swap it between machines as needed. Unfortunately this hasn’t really worked out quite that well. Better would be a 40GB USB key drive that I could swap between them. My external hard drive contains media, documents, and VMWare virtual machine images. Not only is this really big, but if I need to open a virtual machine, then I have effectively locked my documents to one computer. Also, since this is a standard IDE drive with a USB interface, I need a clunky power supply with it. My next step would really need to be a 2.5" laptop hard drive which is powered through the USB port. Then my documents would have a dedicated but floating drive. A stand-alone network storage device would also be nice.
All of these are really just stop-gap measures though. With all of my documents on Google (would they really store that much? For free?!), I would have nearly universal access. Of course, what about those times when my connection goes south? What about when I’m sitting in the car (like now) and don’t want to pay cellular rates for access? Here’s the missing step – adding sync facilities. I started using the application FolderShare a few months before Microsoft acquired it. Great idea. Use it to sync folders across machines, or (and what I used it for at this point), simply access files from another computer. No Windows file shares, no FTP, all secure.
This still doesn’t address the whole problem though. If Google is going to store my files online, I’d want a FolderShare type of application that let me keep a folder or set of folders current on my local machine whenever online. Maybe I’d want all files set up that way for local backup purposes, or just files for current projects. That way I always have a local copy of current documents, but can also use the recent versions online. When my laptop gets a connection, changes propagate each way.
This would be perfect world of data for me. I used XDrive in a similar way (without the auto-sync capabilities) awhile ago, then they started charging more and I dropped them. Would Google charge in the future? Of course they might charge upfront, though that would depart from everything else they’ve offered. You want to trust that your data is safe, tamper-proof, and you won’t be locked out at some point in the future.
Many people are also concerned about security. What discussion about Google’s information domination strategy would be complete without mentioning security? To be honest, it is a concern. Consolidating so much information is a big deal. Your documents are a big part of you – finances, personal letters, contracts, budgets, NDA (or corporate) documents – the idea of losing control is a scary one. If the government subpoenas your information, it will all be in one convenient location. Google also has your email (mine anyway), soon your calendar, possibly your photos, and whatever other products they come up with. How will that be managed? For them to index it, they can’t keep it all encrypted, only to be unlocked on your computer. Perhaps they can commit to indexing it, then encrypting it, but even index information could be useful to other parties. It’s a difficult problem, and not one with an easy solution at this point.
I think it’s sticking your head in the sand to fight such consolidation. It’s inevitable. With laptops, PDA’s/UMPC’s, and cellphones, keeping information silo’d at the device level doesn’t make any sense at all. In my house we have three desktops and a laptop. It’s already way out of hand for me. The issue is how to make it all work, not to prevent it from working to begin with. I expect there to be some high-profile information leaks, Big Brother scenarios, or security vulnerabilities when these services roll out to a greater degree, but that’s not enough of a reason to stop it. Cars have accidents, but we continue to improve them and sell more. The fact that a failure often means the loss of life doesn’t mean we fight the very idea. Maybe that’s an extreme example, but the point is, we need to accept some problems as growing pains, and look forward to the enormous benefits consolidated storage will bring.
I for one welcome Google’s foray into this, and I look forward to taking advantage of it. I will keep local backups for the foreseeable future though!