Storage Wars: Can Dropbox, Box Survive A Price War With Microsoft, Yahoo And Google?
November 11, 2014
Grazed from IBTimes. Author: Salvador Rodriquez.
Microsoft last month announced it would give Office 365 paid subscribers unlimited storage in the cloud — a bargain at just $6.99 per month for a service that also includes the Office productivity suite. It was the latest example of a tech giant using free storage to lure customers into paying for other products.
Yahoo last year began giving Flickr users 1 terabyte of free storage in an attempt to drive traffic back to the forgotten photo-sharing service. More recently, Apple gave its users more incentive to store their files within its ecosystem by dropping the price of iCloud storage, offering 20 gigabytes of space for $0.99 per month — down from $40 per year, or about $3.34 per month. And in March Google slashed its 1 terabyte plan from a monthly charge of $49.99 to just $9.99…
The trend is a win for consumers, but could have a devastating effect on standalone storage companies such as Dropbox and Box. They burst onto the scene in the late 2000s with the promise of building businesses around the cloud, but these days, rivals are either giving away storage or selling it dirt cheap…
Read more from the source @ http://www.ibtimes.com/storage-wars-can-dropbox-box-survive-price-war-microsoft-yahoo-google-1721503