Amazon Zocalo rocks Box, socks DropBox, clocks Google Docs

Amazon has revealed Zocalo, its sync-and-share and managed storage for enterprise. This spells bad news for Box and Dropbox, and perhaps even Google Docs. Zocalo, we're told, features: A secure tool to share documents, spreadsheets, presentations, webpages, images, PDFs, and text files. Encryption of data in flight and at …

[W. Anderson]

insulting reference to Amazon as Microsoft-like in this reference

In stating that " Bezos behemoth has taken a shine to what one of its customers has been doing – a rather Microsoft-ish approach from the olden days", article writers Mellor and Clark make a poor distinction between Amazon entering the user friendly storage space as they have, and Microsoft actions in the past, which were effectively to "partner" with small technology companies and then to suddenly "extricate" that small company's technology for themselves as claimed and broadly reported during that time period, even by unimpeachable technology media sources.

Amazon did not have any similar type "business arrangement or senior partnership" with Box or DropBox, who were merely customers on AWS.

[Not That Andrew]

Re: insulting reference to Amazon as Microsoft-like in this reference

You are splitting hairs. Ether way, Amazon are saying "That looks nice I'll have that, ta." just like MS did and still does. The exact way it's done is unimportant

[FrankAlphaXII]

Re: insulting reference to Amazon as Microsoft-like in this reference

You're using semantics.

Wouldn't you call making your business dependent on AWS, even in part, a strategic partnership or business arrangement with Amazon? I know I would. If it isn't, then what words would you use to describe a contracted arrangement where Amazon provides a service that you depend on for a fee then? Because that sounds an awful lot like a business arrangement and a strategic partnership to me. The same would be true if it were on Azure or Google's offering.

Personally, I say making your business beholden to a third-party who does not give a shit about you aside from their paycheck and may decide to compete is a stupid idea, but then again, the "cloud" and the hypegasm surrounding it has eroded my opinion of quite a number of otherwise intelligent people's common sense, and that's before I even get into the privacy issues.

Amazon is behaving exactly as Microsoft has in the past and continues to to an extent, there's no difference at all except presumably you have a positive opinion of Amazon and a negative opinion of Microsoft, so you excuse one's behavior while condemning the other's. Correct me if I'm wrong but thats how it reads to me anyway.

[garetht t]

Impressive job on the headline there!

[Anonymous Coward]

Cloud

Looks nice, but your corporate data is still disappearing into someone else's datacentre, under whatever intelligence and security laws apply in whatever location that's in.

[mikepaul]

Not a Luddite; I just see issues...

I have a DropBox account (Razer Game Booster encouraged it), but I wouldn't put a single really really important document there. Hackers and disgruntled employees (ex or not) make me think there's no such thing as security. The Standard of Conduct seems to be for somebody to resign once a major data breach happens, but not for those breaches to be made impossible because that might not be profitable. Not a thrill, so a new vendor like Amazon isn't going to matter to me...

[Dojomi]

Most obnoxious article title in history

Trying much too hard to be clever with this

[diodesign]

Re: Most obnoxious article title in history

Thanks!

C.

[TReko]

Re: Most obnoxious article title in history

The Vulture has great articles and the headlines rock, and this headline rocks the box!

Why did Amazon call it Zocalo, though? Not a very business-friendly name, especially for non-Spanish speakers.

[nobby]

Re: Most obnoxious article title in history

the word zocalo? Popularised by babylon 5. if you haven't - watch it; ignore the primitive effects and bask in the paranoia.

[simonb_london]

Sync: "Windows 7 only and Mac OS X 10.7"

Well I use Linux, as do other members of the company I work for, so we won't be considering Zocalo over Dropbox any time soon.

I know only a minority use Linux but for a company to commit to an application like this is really has to work for everyone, not just the majority.

Are you listening, Amazon !?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Sync: "Windows 7 only and Mac OS X 10.7"

No, they're not. They're looking at ROI, and the big picture of how to make money doing this stuff, and you're an edge case. Sorry.

[simonb_london]

Re: Sync: "Windows 7 only and Mac OS X 10.7"

Not such an "edge case" for a system that has to work company-wide. Without 100% coverage within a company its 0% useful compared to Dropbox.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Sync: "Windows 7 only and Mac OS X 10.7"

If your company doesn't have millions of Linux users, then yes, you are an edge-case, to Amazon. Sorry. That's just life.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Sync: "Windows 7 only and Mac OS X 10.7"

This looks interesting https://www.copy.com/ - 15GB free, share the data use between the people sharing the data and supports Linux and is run by a network company Barracuda and is supposedly more secure than Dropbox.

[Not That Andrew]

Re: Sync: "Windows 7 only and Mac OS X 10.7"

A USB stick you forgot on train is more secure than Dropbox.

[thatmoron]

Encryption...

... is mentioned a few times, but I see no useful reference to the implementation other then the usual "all your data is encrypted in transit (SSL) and at rest (who knows how, probably XOR).

Useful encryption for the enterprise requires that the enterprise has an easy way to create and apply unique secure keys for the data encryption. There isn't any way I will be sending any of my data to [insert spinning-rusty-plates-connected-to-the-Internet "cloud provider" here] unencrypted....

[Saint Gerbil]

Amazon Cloud Drive

I'm assuming this is more a re-branding exercise more than any new features added ?