GDrive = “syncing files, viewing files on the Web, shared spaces for collaborating on a document, offline access, local IO speeds” sounds exactly like Dropbox.
Apparently they are thinking too far ahead in the future where Internet connection is ubiquitous and super fast while ignoring the reality.
Dropbox's popularity proved GDrive would be a great product. I would guess the engineers at Google should be as good as, if not better than, guys at Dropbox. Given the planned launch time in 2008, it might very well kill Dropbox right at the beginning, or Dropbox might be a no-go for YC since Google would be doing it so good for free.
PS: Does anyone feel this is just internal politics to kill competing projects so his own project (Sundar is the lead of Chrome) can get more resources?
It's really interesting. When you read 'In the Plex' - which is superb and totally awesome -, there are several instances where you get the sense that Googlers are living in a kind of perfect bubble, shielding them from the kind of problems and hassles regular people have to deal with.
Things like super-fast wireless access (= 24/7 in the cloud) everywhere, being surrounded by like-minded rationalists etc. wind up hurting your products, as you cannot easily relate to the worldview of regular people anymore. Witness the launch of Buzz and it's default opt-in and several other privacy disasters - it made perfect rational sense to launch several features and products the way they were launched as it enhanced efficiency and ease of use etc. But no one at Google apparently thought about your abusive ex-boyfriend now being able to see your buzz activity etc - probably because for rational people such a scenario just isn't in the realm of scenarios one considers. But real life is messy that way.
This is perfectly understandable, though. From the book you get the sense that Googlers are in a way already living several years ahead of regular people, which shapes their products - in good and bad ways.
Apparently they are thinking too far ahead in the future where Internet connection is ubiquitous and super fast while ignoring the reality.
Dropbox's popularity proved GDrive would be a great product. I would guess the engineers at Google should be as good as, if not better than, guys at Dropbox. Given the planned launch time in 2008, it might very well kill Dropbox right at the beginning, or Dropbox might be a no-go for YC since Google would be doing it so good for free.
PS: Does anyone feel this is just internal politics to kill competing projects so his own project (Sundar is the lead of Chrome) can get more resources?