Google Drive in April? ⇥

Om Malik:

According to the details from my sources, Google is going to offer 1 Gb of storage space for free, but will charge for more storage. The market leader Dropbox currently offers 2 Gb for free.

It doesn’t make sense that they would launch with less space than is offered by either Dropbox or Gmail.

In addition, they’re facing a similar problem to that of Google+. Google Docs, for example, was launched into a market dominated by Microsoft Office. Google Docs was free, though, which allowed it to gain market share quickly, and retain a large user base. Google+ was launched as a competitor for Facebook, but without any differentiating factors (apart from easier privacy controls). Facebook is a free product, so nobody switched on price, nor stayed because nobody else stuck around.

Google Drive would be launching as a competitor to Dropbox, based on Malik’s sources. But Dropbox is free, and people love it. There’s no reason for someone to switch away, especially not when they’re launching with half the storage (again, based on Malik’s sources).