Microsoft relaunches faster HTML5 available SkyDrive: A threat to iCloud?

Microsoft re-launched, Monday, its new revamped cloud service, Windows Live SkyDrive, which already provided its users with a free 25GB online storage. The new SkyDrive is fully HTML5 available and up to 90 times as fast as the earlier version.

Earlier this month, Microsoft’s competitor Apple revealed a free online storage service called iCloud in its flagship annual conference, Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC).

Undaunted, Microsoft which has already released a similar service nearly four years ago, updated SkyDrive by making it more speedy, more navigation-friendly and more beautiful.

We’re committed to making SkyDrive the best place to get access to your content from anywhere, collaborate on Office docs, and share photos, Omar Shahine, SkyDrive Group Program Manager, said in his blog post. And he introduced the newest SkyDrive saying, We took advantage of modern browsers and HTML5 to make SkyDrive faster, easier to navigate, and more beautiful for viewing photos.

According to Shahine, common tasks and scenarios in SkyDrive such as clicking on folders and navigating photo albums will go from 6-9 seconds down to 100-300 milliseconds. It is 20-90 times as fast as the older version. And by adding HTML5 capability, HTML5 Video, CSS3, and client rendered experiences are available.

Microsoft has combined all photos, documents, and files shared by the user and files in SkyDrive groups into one view. It makes it easier to navigate files in SkyDrive, because it is based on the common file system in Windows and Mac OS.

Photo viewing has also improved. Thumbnails show up as portraits, landscapes or panoramas, according to how the user took these photos. And the new SkyDrive has replaced pages with unlimited scrolling to enhance the photo viewing experience.

SkyDrive has 100 million users in the world now. But it is facing stiff challenge from competitors such as iCloud by Apple, Amazon Cloud Drive, music beta by Google, Dropbox etc.

Shahine said that this update to SkyDrive is just the beginning of a lot of things we’re excited to bring you.

We’re looking forward to shedding more light on those features as they take shape, he added.