The Windows 8 Consumer Preview will have SkyDrive built in, Microsoft officials confirmed today.
The Windows 8 Consumer Preview will launch February 29, 2012 at an event in Barcelona next Wednesday at the Mobile World Congress 2012. In a blog post, Microsoft group program managers Mike Torres and Omar Shahine wrote:
Many folks reading this blog are active users of SkyDrive and Mesh, both part of the broad set of Windows Live services (like Hotmail), and the Windows Live Essentials programs (Messenger, Photo Gallery, Movie Maker, Mail, and more). With their introduction and with Windows 7, we have talked about how these services really complete the Windows experience. As we developed Windows 8, we thought deeply about how these services can take an even more active role in completing the experience—offering a cloud service for each and every Windows 8 customer and all their PCs (and phones), should you choose to use it. In previous posts … we kicked off talking about cloud services, how you can automatically roam your settings to multiple PCs, and how applications can take advantage of this roaming. In this post, we will show you three cool things that you will get by choosing to sign up and use SkyDrive with Windows 8.
Here’s a video that gets into more detail.
SkyDrive of course isn’t new. It’s been around as a desktop app since Windows Vista. Akin to Apple’s iCloud, SkyDrive cloud storage is also already available for the Apple iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. A Mac client is expected to debut soon.
The site LiveSide.net posted a great list of details it expects — including 10PB for storage.
And then today, Microsoft confirmed a number of the features, and added some new ones of their own. Although there was no mention of the details of the paid storage options, Mac clients, or Bitlocker or URL shortening, there were a number of additional tidbits worth mentioning:
•SkyDrive stores 10 petabytes of user data, Hotmail stores 100PB
•Windows 8 will “finally bring the DNA of SkyDrive and Mesh together into one service”
•SkyDrive app for Windows 8
•SkyDrive available to other Metro style apps and the file system through charms and contracts
•Integrated into the Windows 8 Windows Explorer on the desktop
•Full file and folder upload and sync – “no compromises”
•Metro app built using JavaScript, CSS, HTML5, and the JSON APIs and JavaScript object model in SkyDrive.com
•Metro app optimized for touch
•Ability to save directly from Windows 8 to SkyDrive
•SkyDrive Desktop app available for Windows 8, Windows 7, or Vista
•Installer less than 5mb, takes 10 seconds to install (not sure if this applies to Win7 or Vista)
•Support for uploading up to 2GB files through Explorer
•Remote access will have a “copy to SkyDrive” feature
•Remote streaming of video full screen photo viewer
•2nd factor authentication (mobile number or alt. email address) required for remote access
Our partner, GroovyPost.com, did a first look at the SkyDrive iOS app in December.
