‘Race to zero’ driving tech companies to clash in the cloud

Grazed from TechTimes. Author: Christine deLooper.

Cloud computing is revolutionizing how we work and play, yet it’s not all good for the vendors competiting for users as they’re now embroiled in what the tech industry is calling the "race to zero." The phrase reflects the trend of increasing competition that is driving competitors to slash prices while offering more and more storage.

Luckily for the players, computer storage is getting cheaper so the price cuts aren’t killing bottom lines. For example, one gigabyte’s worth of storage in 1993 cost around $9,000. In 2013, that same storage space cost 4 cents. Cloud storage competition started heating up when Google began offering a free gigabyte of storage for Gmail users…

We have come a long way since then, with Box and Dropbox now offering business customers unlimited storage. Not only that, but Microsoft now offers unlimited storage to its Office 365 subscribers through OneDrive and Amazon now offers unlimited photo storage to Prime customers. Microsoft and Google have both vowed to match Amazon’s offerings while offering better services, meaning that as time goes on the cloud industry will continue cutting prices. Eventually it is very likely that unlimited cloud storage will be completely free…

Read more from the source @ http://www.techtimes.com/articles/19916/20141110/race-zero-driving-tech-companies-clash-cloud.htm#ixzz3Iljc5TLm