With Microsoft Corp.'s aggressive strategy to build out its Software-as-a-Service capability to online storage—even as physical, hardware-based storage remains ubiquitous and competitive—some businesses may find it tempting to allow employees and workgroups to jump into Microsoft's SkyDrive for some limited purpose.
SkyDrive, Microsoft's Office Live storage arm, is a free, Web-based service that is loosely integrated with some Office applications and, because of how it's organized, outflanks its biggest rival, Google Inc., in online storage. The Test Center has taken a look at SkyDrive, formally launched last month after a short beta run, in the ever-expanding shadow of high-powered NAS, SAN and desktop storage solutions.
Microsoft says of SkyDrive, "Sharing with friends, co-workers or family is easy when you all add and update files in a shared folder." Sharing personal files with friends or family might make sense, but doing so with co-workers is questionable.
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