Google Announces Google One, Online Storage With Flexibility
Last week, Google held its IO conference where the company announced several new products and features but apparently, they didn’t have enough time to announce One. One is a new storage option from Google and for those who have a lot of content, it offers a decent amount of flexibility.
Google is evolving their Drive storage service with a new consumer offering that provides 100 GB for $1.99, 200 GB for $2.99, and 2 TB for $9.99 per month, while pricing for plans larger than 2TB will remain the same. (Existing 1 TB Drive plans will be upgraded to 2 TB at no extra cost.) Additionally, you will be able to share this storage with up to five family members.
Further, if you are paying for this storage, Google will also be offering ‘free’ one-tap access to Google Experts to help you with the company’s consumer products. Every iteration of Google One will include these support services which means if you have a problem with your Google account, you can now talk to an expert at the company for as little as $1.99.
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The natural comparison here is to Microsoft’s OneDrive service with Office 365. The ‘Personal’ SKU of Office costs $70.00 a year (although you can find it cheaper on-sale) but that provides all of the Office apps and 1TB of online storage.
From a pure value perspective, Microsoft has the advantage here with Office 365 but there is one major problem; you can’t upgrade your storage with Office. So, if you are storing a lot of data online, Google One may be a better option for you as can dynamically change the amount of storage you are paying for each month.
Google isn’t widely available yet but you can sign-up to be notified when the service is available in your area, here.
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Conversation 36 comments
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Stooks
<p>"<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">From a pure value perspective, Microsoft has the advantage here with Office 365"</span></p><p><br></p><p>Well maybe. There are millions upon millions of kids from 5 to probably 25?, now that think Google Doc's is all they need and they are probably correct.</p><p><br></p><p>To these "people" Google Photos being better than anything Microsoft offers, is more important that Office 365. I work in IT and get Microsoft Office free and I rarely use it over Google docs these days. I am reminded I have it when on a rare occasions someone sends me a Word or PPT document in email and I open it.</p>
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Stooks
<blockquote><a href="#275602"><em>In reply to lilmoe:</em></a></blockquote><p>You missed my point….I work in IT and I use Google Doc's over MS Office. Half or more of the firms we work with use Google Doc's. They also use tools like Slack and Basecamp that integrate with Google Doc's. Why do you think Microsoft rushed out Teams and is pushing it.</p><p><br></p><p>There are lots of business that don't use a single Microsoft product anymore and it is NOT hard to do.</p><p><br></p><p>Microsoft destroyed Skype and IMHO it no longer has any value. Google Photos, email and Docs DO NOT count towards your storage. So the "value" for OneDrive with Office 365 drops pretty quickly when those same things (photos, email and docs) count toward you 1TB limit.</p>
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Stooks
<blockquote><a href="#275799"><em>In reply to jrickel96:</em></a></blockquote><p>I read on another site that if you pay for this new storage they will NOT scale down the quality. Same as when you own a Pixel phone.</p><p><br></p><p>OneDrive Photos is simply horrible in so many ways.</p>
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innitrichie
<blockquote><a href="#275501"><em>In reply to AlexKven:</em></a></blockquote><p><br></p><p>No. BSkyB has a trademark for "Sky" Microsoft doesn't have a trademark for "one".</p>