Though Dropbox is more popular with over 45 million users, with 17 million users, Microsoft’s SkyDrive is a strong competitor. SkyDrive’s most desired feature has been 25GB of free space, much larger than that of most rivals. On Monday, Microsoft revealed its desire to be the "world’s hard drive", integrating SkyDrive with Windows 8 to make it easier to access your data from any device.
Though SkyDrive has been available for over four years, it hasn’t gain mainstream acceptance. Despite its large amount of free storage and capability to share files and collaborate with your friends and colleagues, main reasons include its lack of a desktop client and any Windows integration to access that storage easily. It appears that Microsoft has taken note of SkyDrive’s shortcomings; its Building Windows 8 blog details three ways SkyDrive will be used in Windows 8.
1. Metro App on Windows 8
Microsoft developed a new Metro-style app for SkyDrive, based on Javascript, CSS, and HTML5. Doing this allows the SkyDrive app to display files of various types as data using the tiled Metro interface, and to use Windows 8 touch-based controls to interact with them. Taking it further, SkyDrive automatically integrated across all Metro-style apps, so they can all open and save files directly to SkyDrive. (Apple announced a similar feature in its upcoming OS X Mountain Lion, which integrates with iCloud.) This will make it much easier for workers to use their data without worrying about the uploading and downloading of files.
2. SkyDrive Sync to Desktop
Dropbox has been popular due to the easy way it syncs files stored on your local desktop to the cloud, and from there to other devices. Microsoft announced it will release a SkyDrive app for desktops that will do the same. Available not only for Windows 8 but for Windows Vista and Windows 7 as well, the app will run in the background and copy all the files in your SkyDrive account to a folder of your choice. Any changes to files in that folder on your desktop will be instantly synced with your online account. This not only functions as a backup and a way to access your files from anywhere in the world, but it can make your business files available on any Windows-based device you choose. There is even a rumored Mac client in the works.
3. Remote Files Through SkyDrive
