Dropbox cuts cloud storage prices $10 per terabyte, matching Google and Microsoft Dropbox has become the latest company to slash its cloud storage costs as the price war in the sector heats up, leaving consumers to reap the cost benefits. "We don’t want you to worry about choosing the right plan or having enough space," the company wrote in a blog post. "So today, we’re simplifying Dropbox Pro to a single …
there's a subtle psychological scam there: the prices quoted are indeed 9.99 but they are in EURO not USD...
please pay attention to the currency symbol that dropbox uses. They show up as €9.99 / month for me for Dropbox Pro.
edit:
and here's a screenshot just made: http://i62.tinypic.com/2v998qe.png
Right I'm just pointing this out, so please be gentle.
Office 365 Home, costs £79.99/year works out at £6.65/month.
And you get,
5 Licenses for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, OneNote, Publisher and Outlook running on PC's or Macs
Plus
5 Licenses for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, OneNote, Publisher and Outlook running on iPads or Surface (if available) or other mobile
Plus
60 minutes/month of Skype World calls (60 countries)
Plus
1TB of OneDrive storage for each of the PC of Mac users (5 * 1TB)
So saying that Dropbox have matched Microsoft in their charges is a bit misleading. I'm no Microsoft apologist but it does seem on heck of a bargain, even if you only use the storage. Yes, I do know that Dropbox is easier to sync across, and it maybe shows that MS are desperate but it's still a good deal.
The comparison is heavily flawed. Dropbox's model is different: files are inherently available offline; there is less lock-in and cross-selling.
Of course, an annual subscription works out cheaper but what if you want to change after 6 months?
Dropbox prices also apply for business, Microsoft's doesn't
I don't want Skype since Microsoft broke it, and already have the bits of Office or their equivalents that I want. Nearly all my international (EU + US) calls are already covered in my phone plan.
I get it, it doesn't suit you, fair enough.
Good point about business use though.
You don't want Skype, fine then don't use it. I'm really pleased that you've found some other way to make your calls.
For every 500 people from ElReg that hate it, there maybe one home user who will finds the storage and use of Office (5 licenses) useful, that person(s) will save money over Dropbox.
The fact you need to ask if it works offline is revealing. And yes, you can encrypt stuff yourself.
@slarty
"I believe that OneDrive does include file syncing for Windows users"
The free version does this. Can't speak for the business version but there is already sharing in Windows so it's not much of an issue.
Does it work offline?
Yes, and selecting what is and isn't can be configured on a per-file and per-machine basis
Can you mount it as a file system and, therefore, encrypt it yourself?
Not directly, but you can create one or more VHD files and store them on there and mount them on your machine and use whatever file system you want.
I have used dropbox for several years. I tried OneDrive after I upgraded to Windows 8.1 and it was baked in. OneDrive was syncing my files at about 10KB/s. Dropbox gives me at least 100x that speed.
Not a Microsoft hater by any stretch, but OneDrive is just too slow to be of any use as a cloud storage system in the 2 weeks or so I struggled with it.
I think we also need to consider too that all these price cuts is just the big boys like Google and Microsoft hoping to put the smaller guys out of business. Remember when Google Apps and email was free for businesses on your own domain. Then it stopped being free for new signups, and soon after Outlook.com was no longer free for businesses either. I fully expect once they've extinguished the competition, you won't get free cloud storage from Google or Microsoft, and everything will be paid-for only.
I get it, it doesn't suit you, fair enough.
You obviously don't get it: the two propositions are not comparable and I listed some of the reasons why.
FWIW I've been using VoIP for getting on twenty years and have always preferred using a phone over cabling myself to my computer. Call quality on Skype and its ilk has always been less than perfect. Customer has a Lync setup that is unusable through the VPN so we always use the phone then as well.
"You obviously don't get it: the two propositions are not comparable and I listed some of the reasons why."
Yep, I get your thinking and that's why it's not suitable for you.
BTW Dropbox does not "work" offline. It syncs an existing file tree (encrypted or not) into the Cloud when running and then to other devices. However, when off line Dropbox does sod all. You are only accessing a system already on your drive. Therefore, Dropbox is NOT working off line. What I think you mean is DropBox can sync local files across a number of devices, can OneDrive do this?
I believe that OneDrive does include file syncing for Windows users and OneDrive For Business allows cross platform syncing. So yes it can if you're using the correct OneDrive product and probably paying more for it.
As for picking on Skype, it's hardly a deal breaker if you don't use your free 60 mins. If you don't want to use it then don't. It's really just a side argument against what is a cracking good deal for home users and one very small part of the package.
For many home users the products are comparable and with the the extra "benefits" thrown in it is an option worth considering. Not for you I DO get that and i understand why
I would be happier if the Dropbox client was FOSS, but ok , we know they hold the keys.
But their client acts a bit like a virus, and so I disabled it. I am thinking of setting up a "dropbox user" with no other privs and its own chroot jail. In fact , maybe I'll put it in an headless VM...
I disabled that KDE file sniffer too., so I am not being partisan!
I will agree it is nice and convenient for sharing and what not (the filelink feature of thunderbird is really quite nice! It allows you to upload huge attachements elsewhere).
Having software that can potentially broadcast your home directory to the world (by design!), seems just a little to Trojany...Is that a word?
Oh well, its early in this timezone. I must need my paranoia meds...
P.
Either they were a hard disk manufacturer in a past life or they don't know what a Terabyte really is. Given their definition, do they mean:
1,000,000,000,000 Bytes (IE 1 TB = 1000 GB, 1 GB = 1000 MB, etc)
Or
1,073,741,824,000 Bytes? (IE 1TB = 1000 GB, 1 GB = 1024 MB, etc)
Anyone who does the former should be fired...
out of a cannon....
into a brick wall.
"Anyone who does the former [1TB = 1,000,000,000 bytes] should be fired..."
So, that'll be all the official standards bodies? RAM, being addressed in binary, traditionally got expressed using binary k, and disk, not being, traditionally got expressed in decimal k.
Now the official definition is 1TB = 1,000,000,000 bytes and 1TiB = 1,099,511,627,776 bytes. Of course, if someone uses MB, TB etc. to refer to RAM it's safe to assume they're talking MiB and TiB. But otherwise, I'm afraid 1TB really is exactly 109 bytes.
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