12 ms·

Microsoft’s cloud service SkyDrive is great, and no one has noticed

128 points by rfreytag 14y ago

rbanffy 14y ago
Requires much hassle to use on Linux and a case-insensitive filesystem on a Mac. Why bother?
- majormajor 14y ago
  Did you actually set up your system to use case-sensitive HFS+? What does it do that the default doesn't?
  - rbanffy 14y ago
    I set it up on a separate partition. Quite frankly, I can only imagine the horrendous bug nest that would require what amounts to little more than a file syncing application to demand a case-insensitive filesystem. Do they really store the files on NTFS volumes somewhere?
    - majormajor 14y ago
      It is a bizarre requirement, especially since Skydrive does preserve case. I'd just never run into anyone with case-sensitive HFS before.
      - jsight 14y ago
        I'm not sure that it's completely bizarre. Dropbox will work on case-sensitive file systems, but it does very strange things if two files exist with the same name, but different case. I suspect MS just didn't want to deal with this complexity for what was (perceived) to be an issue for a relatively small number of people. To be clear, I don't necessarily agree with their reasoning, but I do see where it could have come from.
        rbanffy 14y ago
        > I suspect MS just didn't want to deal with this complexity Case-sensitive filesystems are probably much simpler than case-insensitive ones that have to preserve case when a file is saved or renamed but ignore it when the file is opened.
    - deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
- eckyptang 14y ago
  Because the majority of the userbase are on windows?
  - rbanffy 14y ago
    And by making the experience horrible to everyone else, they ensure the majority of their userbase is on Windows. What's disappointing is that this indicates they never tested it on out-of-the-box Macs as they all come with case-sensitive filesystems by default. It says a lot about Microsoft's QA.
    - eckyptang 14y ago
      I could reverse that and say how horrible git and svn are on Windows for the same reason (have you ever dealt with a repo that has a file Test.cs and test.cs ?) It's just an incompatibility you have to live with.
      - rbanffy 14y ago
        If you think Git or Subversion are broken, you're free to fix them and publish a patch (or a fork). I don't see it a possibility with either NTFS or SkyDrive. And, BTW, I don't think either Git or Subversion would refuse to function on case-insensitive filesystems as does SkyDrive. Finally, the suffering Windows programmers can impose on themselves by using version control systems does not invalidate the claim Microsoft obviously doesn't test their software on Macs with default OSX installs.
        eckyptang 14y ago
        I didn't suggest they were broken. The semantics are different between UNIX and Windows which is the same point you are making. The issue here is when something decided that proceeding was dangerous and stops it. The issue here is that compared to SVN/Git, which fail late, SkyDrive fails early and refuses to function which has a number of advantages including no nasty surprises when some awkward individual uploads Test.cs and test.cs after using it for 6 months. They did test it and decided that it was better to fail up front rather than lead the user down a path to certain destruction. That's the difference between good code and shit code. As a footnote, NTFS is case sensitive via the POSIX subsystem but not via DOS VM/Win32 subsystems. HFS+ is both case sensitive and not as well. Interesting eh? No technical superiority either way. Now, regarding patching or forking Git or Subversion, I don't want to any more. I have sent a few patches to the SVN to fix merging bugs to no avail (they are still there and regularly fuck up our mergeinfo properties). Forking is just a waste of time as we have to fork the entire dependency chain up to the end software which is pretty much up to TeamCity and VisualSVN. As for NTFS, we had an issue with mounting junctions on volumes greater than 2TiB back in 2004. It took one phone call and 4 days to get a hotfix to us from the NTFS team and it was included in a patch cycle a few weeks later. Same with NHibernate profiler - fix in 2 hours. Commercial software is not the root of all evil. Shitty management is and that exists both in open source and commercial markets.
Buzaga 14y ago
also, they'll be peeking at your private stuff and banning you for it http://wmpoweruser.com/watch-what-you-store-on-skydriveyou-may-lose-your-microsoft-life/ http://wmpoweruser.com/watch-what-you-store-on-skydriveyou-m...
- JimmaDaRustla 14y ago
  Don't be a law breaking jagaloon and you should be fine. Edit: My take: just because a folder is private doesn't mean you couldn't suddenly make it "public", making Microsoft the proud host of illicit pornography. I say illicit because I'm sure there are, depending on the state, laws to abide by which you must have a "18+" warning/prompt in order to access it. Edit 2: And, if you really don't want to MSFT to see your files, but still want to use their free service, use a TrueCrypt drive. You will lose the features things like opening documents on devices, etc, but you get the additional protection.
  - ceejayoz 14y ago
    Since when are nude photos stored on a personal storage service breaking the law?
    - JimmaDaRustla 14y ago
      Edited my original message. Maybe MSFT should allow to flag your content as mature, but who knows what other jurisdictions they run under.
    - tisme 14y ago
      Welcome to the cloud, where your personal data is no longer personal. Microsoft may have made a mistake doing this, it may look like a relatively small issue but they have taken on the burden of being responsible for the data stored on their systems now.
  - rbanffy 14y ago
    > Don't be a law breaking jagaloon and you should be fine. Yeah. That makes it perfectly fine for them to peek into your files, watch your home movies...
majormajor 14y ago
The ability to upload an Excel file, edit it on the web editor or the app on my phone, and still have the original xlsx file with full fidelity available through Skydrive is fantastic. I was never a fan of the Google Docs integration on my old Evo running 2.3—it seemed terribly slow to load the docs list and individual documents, even on wifi—but have been very happy with Skydrive and its integration into WP and also Mac OS X and Windows.
lewisflude 14y ago
Nice, been looking for a good Docs (Drive?) replacement for a while now!
runjake 14y ago
I've used it, it seemed great. There are a couple reasons I don't use it, though: 1. It's not Microsoft's bread and butter. History has shown when it's no longer cost-effective, they'll drop it or neglect it in a heartbeat. 2. Say it does become wildly successful and pushes out its major competition (Dropbox & Drive), history has shown they'll still neglect it until it bit rots enough that a competitor can grab a foothold (eg. IE, Office, Hotmail, etc etc etc). Microsoft has awesome, awesome engineering people. They just need to change their vision and their leadership.
- eckyptang 14y ago
  I get the feeling you haven't used IE, hotmail and office for a while. They're definitely not rotting.
  - bmm6o 14y ago
    They are not rotting today, but only because of competitive pressure from Firefox, Chrome, GMail, Yahoo and Open Office. There was a long period of MS lounging after winning the space.
    - tatsuke95 14y ago
      Yes, competition drives innovation. This will not go away, so I wouldn't worry about it.
      - justincormack 14y ago
        successful companies cannibalize themselves before the competition does not after.
  - runjake 14y ago
    I use IE and Office daily. You didn't read my statement correctly: "they'll still neglect it until it bit rots enough that a competitor can grab a foothold"
eckyptang 14y ago
I've been using SkyDrive for a couple of years. It's great. I use it to sync my desktop, laptop and phone (lumia). The main powerful thing for me is OneNote which just works transparently. There is literally nothing out there as good. I've tried everything. Google drive is Just crap - it doesn't leave real files on your disk and its buggy. Dropbox is better but has no application support. I think why no one has noticed is that a) the SkyDrive proponents as per much of the userbase isn't that vocal and b) everyone is blind to Microsoft these days. As for the risk if account shutdown and them peeking at stuff, this is a risk for any 'cloud provider'. If its a problem, keep a backup (which SkyDrive does as it mirrors everything rather than providing links) and don't use it for anything dodgy. I've had 9gb of mp3s up there for two years with no problems.
tharris0101 14y ago
Sounds cool but -and I know I'm biased- I won't let anything pull me back into an Office world.
gm 14y ago
I tried, it, really really liked it. LOVED the cheap prices for larger capacities, and was about to give them my money to share stuff with other people... Until I discovered the hard way that files shared across accounts CANNOT be synchronized to the local hard drive... It was a "What the fuck???" moment, surely MS cannot roll out without this critical functionality... Yet, it's correct, you can only sync to the local hard drive stuff that belongs to your account. If it's shared from someone else's account then you can only see the files online and need to download them if you need it locally. Big fail, and a showstopper for me. Dropbox does this just fine, BTW. so I am reluctant Dropbox user.
- drharris 14y ago
  I actually spoke to a SkyDrive team member about this one. The root problem is that once you have a truly shared folder, it takes up both people's quota (it has to, otherwise you could link a lot of free accounts to get extra space). The way it is implemented now makes it an explicit operation to move something to your skydrive, so you know the quota implications up-front. That said, they are trying to figure out a better solution for this. Ironically (or not), this is the reason I quit Dropbox, because they do not warn you that a shared folder will ruin your quota. Someone shared 50GB of photos, it started syncing, maxed the quota, and resulted in some important documents never making it to the cloud. Neither is an ideal solution. Nobody's solved this problem yet. Edit: The other reason was security; auto-sync is an excellent vector for malware to enter the system. Get into one person's skydrive, infect their shared folders, rinse and repeat.
  - gm 14y ago
    Very true, all your points. But the need is still there. And I hear you about the quota problem. They should just make it take up the quota of the person doing the sharing... Or am I missing something? But in the meantime I am using Dropbox and I really, really did not want to become a Dropboxer.
    - pjzedalis 14y ago
      You are missing something. A person could conceivably create a ton of free accounts then fill them to the free space limitations. Share it with their primary account and then they have unlimited free space.
drharris 14y ago
I love Skydrive. It's the best of Dropbox combined with the best of Google Docs (even better, you get to use Office), and it all works so seamlessly I forget that I'm even using it. Maybe that's why nobody's talking about it, because it's not causing us any pain. Not to mention, it's decently cheaper than the other options and is well-integrated into all the devices I tend to use. The only pain point I still have (and nobody has solved this) is that both my wife and I have Live accounts, and we'd like to have a shared quota, with some private folders. For now we just log into the same account until a better solution is available. I'm not using it to store racy pictures or my social security numbers, so I'm not too concerned with privacy implications; there's no privacy to be had online anyway. But given it integrates seamlessly with Office, OneNote, iOS (mostly), Windows, Android, Xbox, and the web, I have nothing to complain about. Like I said, it works so well I forget I'm even paying for it, which is the best kind of service.
- dpark 14y ago
  > The only pain point I still have (and nobody has solved this) is that both my wife and I have Live accounts, and we'd like to have a shared quota, with some private folders. For now we just log into the same account until a better solution is available. Can you clarify what your need is? If you share a folder (with edit permissions) with your wife's Microsoft account, she can simply edit the contents of the folder directly. I understand that doesn't give you a shared quota, but I'm not clear why that's necessary. Presumably you're not worried about your wife abusing your space, since you're currently just sharing the account, and also since you married her. If you just need more space, the expanded storage plans for SkyDrive are extremely cheap. You could also create a group and use that to share with her. The group would get its own separate quota. I frankly haven't used groups much because I don't have a need for them, but I think they would be pretty much what you're asking for. It won't sync locally, though, if that's something you need.
  - drharris 14y ago
    Local sync is of course the main need, and why we can't currently go the sharing route. Without sync, Skydrive is largely useless. For now, logging into the same account is ok. However, with Windows 8 tying into the live ID, it would be better if we each had our own separate logins, but had "family share" folders, for things like family documents and pictures. You can do that now, but the folders wouldn't sync. Nobody has solved the "family sync" problem yet. Give me separate accounts for each member, but have a shared space that everyone accesses, with local sync, and the ability to manage some sort of shared quota system (I don't want to have to pay for 3 accounts x 50GB, would rather pay once for 100GB allocated my own way). Especially when you tie such a system to Xbox live, you can start to see how a family-based cloud approach would be a killer app.
akandiah 14y ago
While I would like to try it, I'm put off by Microsoft's snooping of data: http://news.ycombinator.org/item?id=4265086 http://news.ycombinator.org/item?id=4265086
ChuckMcM 14y ago
The guy you can thank for the multi-edit-streams is Pavel Curtis. I got to sit down and chat with him about the development of the calculus involved and all I can say is the guy is a genius period.
qq66 14y ago
HN doesn't talk a lot about Microsoft Office, but it's by far the world's dominant software application. American adults spend 35 billion hours in Office every year, compared to 15 billion hours in Facebook, and 30 million PowerPoint presentations are created every day. Any service that handles document collaboration, such as Dropbox or Box, is dealing mostly with Microsoft Office files in the enterprise. Shameless plug here, since we tackle the same problem: People want to collaborate in real-time, but they also want to use the standard Microsoft Office applications that they already know how to use (well, maybe not the HN crowd, but the corporate crowd). The way people use Office today is completely broken, with filenames like "Marketing_v133_Tuesday_v4_Final_ReallyFinal.pptx" being emailed back and forth in a Lynchian version control nightmare. We're trying to go one step further with LiveLoop -- instead of bringing "save and sync" functionality to the desktop applications like SkyDrive, we bring true keystroke-by-keystroke real-time editing to Office. The first product we support is PowerPoint and we just launched two weeks ago. You can find us at http://getliveloop.com http://getliveloop.com .
- bornhuetter 14y ago
  I think a lot of developers ignore enterprise, and what I would call "the real world", often to their detriment. There really is a lot of room for talented developers in that area. I think real-time collaboration within office documents would be very valuable - but it has to be really reliable. Word and Excel are probably the key apps in my mind, rather than Powerpoint - I assume you plan these for later. How hard to you think it will be to get this working well enough for a Big 4 to trust it?
  - qq66 14y ago
    LiveLoop, as it stands today, is really reliable in terms of data integrity -- we've been in alpha testing for months and have not lost a keystroke of data. However, because of the challenges of building this product through the COM API, we've had to make several design decisions which somewhat curtail the user experience, namely 1) some actions require explicit syncing, but the list of these actions shrinks every day, and 2) we need to momentarily steal focus at times. PowerPoint is definitely the most important application from a collaboration perspective -- although Excel spreadsheets are important, they tend to be owned by a fewer number of people, often just an individual. PowerPoints often reflect consensus decisions, which require much more collaboration across multiple organizational layers. We'll be doing Word and Excel of course, but right now our focus is on PowerPoint. I'm not sure what you mean by Big 4 (consulting?) but we are currently in a pilot at a Fortune 100 company.
uday_nandam 14y ago
Skydrive is great! I use it on my Macbook, iPhone and Win8(desktop)! The syncing is almost seamless now, works great through all ecosystems, and it is much easier to organize your documents on the Web and on the OS! Unlike GoogleDrive, which is a mess to deal with and try to organize your documents! The sharing options are also much better with Skydrive!
eykanal 14y ago
One thing I love about the hacker culture is that it functions like a (somewhat dysfunctional) meritocracy. Software that is good will often gain kudos, and bad software will be torn apart in critiques. This fails when it comes to large companies as old biases and conspiracy theories tend to kick in, but still, when Microsoft does something good, eventually people will fess up and write good things about it. It's definitely one of the nicer things about communities like this.
- wslh 14y ago
  And OneNote is great too!
  - lifeisstillgood 14y ago
    I miss Clippy !
    - ZoFreX 14y ago
      Then you might like Ribbon Hero 2 [1], an interactive tour / tutorial around Microsoft Office starring clippy! [1]: http://www.ribbonhero.com/news.html http://www.ribbonhero.com/news.html
      - lifeisstillgood 14y ago
        Curiously this links to the lifecycle email thread - the idea is to create long running engagement with the user such that they learn things useful to them, also moving towards your product So a game where Clippy needs to say and an image to a doc, is a good idea. Oddly, by automating word I guess one product could be to create game engine for just such things.
  - akx 14y ago
    Deity Here, yes. OneNote is one of those pieces of software I use honestly daily - bi-hourly, more or less, if only for Win+S - and no one knows about it! "Copy Text From Image" is also simply great. And I also use it to quickly document series of screenshots for functionality tests (or rather "worksforme"s).
6ren 14y ago
I've been looking for a rich text editor for linux - I got sick of OpenOffice's load times (47sec) and seeing Oracle's logo. It was inconceivable to me that MS has a webapp version of Word. Unfortunately, it takes 27sec to load a document (in chrome, slower in firefox). Abiword takes only 7sec (though the rendering is bit buggy sometimes, and it doesn't selects words when you x2 click).
- eckyptang 14y ago
  Odd it loads in 2 seconds for me even on ie9.
hamxiaoz 14y ago
One more thing: Skydrive is not blocked by GFW. On the other hand, both Google and Dropbox are blocked.
- hollerith 14y ago
  GFW == Great Firewall of China, probably.
mandeepj 14y ago
I am also using skydrive for few years now. All I can say that I am very happy. I keep my active codebase folder synced with skydrive and I am worry free from any loss. All my new code changes gets saved into cloud as soon as I hit "Save". Recently, MS released a skydrive explorer and drop-off folder which makes it more good. It crashes one in a while but not a big deal. It is stuck with one of my login.aspx.vb and never sync it. I don't know why. It created multiple versions of my few .docx files with my machine name appended but I think MS will fix it over time. Does the success of skydrive means slow death for dropbox and box.net? I seriously think dropbox should start some other business may be integration with FB was the step in that direction but the feature is not outrageously great.
dsolomon 14y ago
Saving for later.
rthomas6 14y ago
" * Windows Phone * iPhone and iPad * Other Phones" Heh.
zmmmmm 14y ago
I enthusiastically tried to use SkyDrive a while back but two things stopped me: no linux client and the Mac client required Lion (while my laptop is stuck on snow leopard). For me, the whole entire point of cloud storage is that it works seamlessly across all the platforms I use. If it doesn't do that it's got little value compared to the solutions that go across all the platforms I use.
DanielOcean 14y ago
Um, perhaps because they're a little overly strict on what you can keep in there. This photographer got his account banned and deleted after they found 4 partial nudes: http://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyclay/2012/07/19/is-microsoft-spying-on-skydrive-users/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyclay/2012/07/19/is-microsof... Which apparently is against it's long list of prohibited uses listed here: http://wmpoweruser.com/watch-what-you-store-on-skydriveyou-may-lose-your-microsoft-life/ http://wmpoweruser.com/watch-what-you-store-on-skydriveyou-m...
- jasomill 14y ago
  Nice. In particular, given that every email ever "could be considered 'junk mail'", Hotmail now forbids the transmission of email.
devb0x 14y ago
I opened my hotmail account in 98, it sure isnt going anywhere. Further I am loving skydrive. It doesn't sync on my nix boxes but it backs up via a simple drag drop. What's easier than that? I'm testing it now, but love the image gallery and simple UI. Nicely done.
StJobsFromGrave 14y ago
No offense, but if nobody has noticed, it probably sucks.
fiendsan 14y ago
i wouldnt say its great, its on the middle of the pack, there are things that still drag it down, there is a limit on the size of each file and number of files you can sync, also the software runs pretty slow and syncs pretty slow, its pretty stable on windows 7 but it kinda freaks out a lot on OSX and finally they actively scan the contents of your files in the cloud, and that is kinda were i draw the line, one thing is fully encripted drive, another is what dropbox does a sort of mix of security and ease, but microsoft goes out of its way to go through your files, thats a big brother nono, on the flip side, they do have realy cheap storage (i think google drive storage is ridiculous, especially comparing with dropbox) and their office/picture application support is probably the best, so i wouldnt say skydrive is all that great, its just ok.
valdiorn 14y ago
Oh, I noticed, allright! And here's why you SHOULD NOT use it! http://wmpoweruser.com/watch-what-you-store-on-skydriveyou-may-lose-your-microsoft-life/ http://wmpoweruser.com/watch-what-you-store-on-skydriveyou-m...
SpikeDad 14y ago
Yea, that's it. It's OUR fault (the technology users) that Microsoft is failing with SkyDrive. If only we abandoned all the other services that do us well and switch to something we don't a)know about and b)don't give a shit about then everything for MS will be fine. Who are these people writing this crap?

128 points by rfreytag 14y ago

rbanffy 14y ago

Requires much hassle to use on Linux and a case-insensitive filesystem on a Mac. Why bother?

majormajor 14y ago
Did you actually set up your system to use case-sensitive HFS+? What does it do that the default doesn't?
- rbanffy 14y ago
  I set it up on a separate partition. Quite frankly, I can only imagine the horrendous bug nest that would require what amounts to little more than a file syncing application to demand a case-insensitive filesystem. Do they really store the files on NTFS volumes somewhere?
  - majormajor 14y ago
    It is a bizarre requirement, especially since Skydrive does preserve case. I'd just never run into anyone with case-sensitive HFS before.
    - jsight 14y ago
      I'm not sure that it's completely bizarre. Dropbox will work on case-sensitive file systems, but it does very strange things if two files exist with the same name, but different case. I suspect MS just didn't want to deal with this complexity for what was (perceived) to be an issue for a relatively small number of people. To be clear, I don't necessarily agree with their reasoning, but I do see where it could have come from.
      - rbanffy 14y ago
        > I suspect MS just didn't want to deal with this complexity Case-sensitive filesystems are probably much simpler than case-insensitive ones that have to preserve case when a file is saved or renamed but ignore it when the file is opened.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
eckyptang 14y ago
Because the majority of the userbase are on windows?
- rbanffy 14y ago
  And by making the experience horrible to everyone else, they ensure the majority of their userbase is on Windows. What's disappointing is that this indicates they never tested it on out-of-the-box Macs as they all come with case-sensitive filesystems by default. It says a lot about Microsoft's QA.
  - eckyptang 14y ago
    I could reverse that and say how horrible git and svn are on Windows for the same reason (have you ever dealt with a repo that has a file Test.cs and test.cs ?) It's just an incompatibility you have to live with.
    - rbanffy 14y ago
      If you think Git or Subversion are broken, you're free to fix them and publish a patch (or a fork). I don't see it a possibility with either NTFS or SkyDrive. And, BTW, I don't think either Git or Subversion would refuse to function on case-insensitive filesystems as does SkyDrive. Finally, the suffering Windows programmers can impose on themselves by using version control systems does not invalidate the claim Microsoft obviously doesn't test their software on Macs with default OSX installs.
      - eckyptang 14y ago
        I didn't suggest they were broken. The semantics are different between UNIX and Windows which is the same point you are making. The issue here is when something decided that proceeding was dangerous and stops it. The issue here is that compared to SVN/Git, which fail late, SkyDrive fails early and refuses to function which has a number of advantages including no nasty surprises when some awkward individual uploads Test.cs and test.cs after using it for 6 months. They did test it and decided that it was better to fail up front rather than lead the user down a path to certain destruction. That's the difference between good code and shit code. As a footnote, NTFS is case sensitive via the POSIX subsystem but not via DOS VM/Win32 subsystems. HFS+ is both case sensitive and not as well. Interesting eh? No technical superiority either way. Now, regarding patching or forking Git or Subversion, I don't want to any more. I have sent a few patches to the SVN to fix merging bugs to no avail (they are still there and regularly fuck up our mergeinfo properties). Forking is just a waste of time as we have to fork the entire dependency chain up to the end software which is pretty much up to TeamCity and VisualSVN. As for NTFS, we had an issue with mounting junctions on volumes greater than 2TiB back in 2004. It took one phone call and 4 days to get a hotfix to us from the NTFS team and it was included in a patch cycle a few weeks later. Same with NHibernate profiler - fix in 2 hours. Commercial software is not the root of all evil. Shitty management is and that exists both in open source and commercial markets.

Buzaga 14y ago

also, they'll be peeking at your private stuff and banning you for it http://wmpoweruser.com/watch-what-you-store-on-skydriveyou-may-lose-your-microsoft-life/ http://wmpoweruser.com/watch-what-you-store-on-skydriveyou-m...

JimmaDaRustla 14y ago
Don't be a law breaking jagaloon and you should be fine. Edit: My take: just because a folder is private doesn't mean you couldn't suddenly make it "public", making Microsoft the proud host of illicit pornography. I say illicit because I'm sure there are, depending on the state, laws to abide by which you must have a "18+" warning/prompt in order to access it. Edit 2: And, if you really don't want to MSFT to see your files, but still want to use their free service, use a TrueCrypt drive. You will lose the features things like opening documents on devices, etc, but you get the additional protection.
- ceejayoz 14y ago
  Since when are nude photos stored on a personal storage service breaking the law?
  - JimmaDaRustla 14y ago
    Edited my original message. Maybe MSFT should allow to flag your content as mature, but who knows what other jurisdictions they run under.
  - tisme 14y ago
    Welcome to the cloud, where your personal data is no longer personal. Microsoft may have made a mistake doing this, it may look like a relatively small issue but they have taken on the burden of being responsible for the data stored on their systems now.
- rbanffy 14y ago
  > Don't be a law breaking jagaloon and you should be fine. Yeah. That makes it perfectly fine for them to peek into your files, watch your home movies...

majormajor 14y ago

The ability to upload an Excel file, edit it on the web editor or the app on my phone, and still have the original xlsx file with full fidelity available through Skydrive is fantastic. I was never a fan of the Google Docs integration on my old Evo running 2.3—it seemed terribly slow to load the docs list and individual documents, even on wifi—but have been very happy with Skydrive and its integration into WP and also Mac OS X and Windows.

lewisflude 14y ago

Nice, been looking for a good Docs (Drive?) replacement for a while now!

runjake 14y ago

I've used it, it seemed great. There are a couple reasons I don't use it, though: 1. It's not Microsoft's bread and butter. History has shown when it's no longer cost-effective, they'll drop it or neglect it in a heartbeat. 2. Say it does become wildly successful and pushes out its major competition (Dropbox & Drive), history has shown they'll still neglect it until it bit rots enough that a competitor can grab a foothold (eg. IE, Office, Hotmail, etc etc etc). Microsoft has awesome, awesome engineering people. They just need to change their vision and their leadership.

eckyptang 14y ago
I get the feeling you haven't used IE, hotmail and office for a while. They're definitely not rotting.
- bmm6o 14y ago
  They are not rotting today, but only because of competitive pressure from Firefox, Chrome, GMail, Yahoo and Open Office. There was a long period of MS lounging after winning the space.
  - tatsuke95 14y ago
    Yes, competition drives innovation. This will not go away, so I wouldn't worry about it.
    - justincormack 14y ago
      successful companies cannibalize themselves before the competition does not after.
- runjake 14y ago
  I use IE and Office daily. You didn't read my statement correctly: "they'll still neglect it until it bit rots enough that a competitor can grab a foothold"

eckyptang 14y ago

I've been using SkyDrive for a couple of years. It's great. I use it to sync my desktop, laptop and phone (lumia). The main powerful thing for me is OneNote which just works transparently. There is literally nothing out there as good. I've tried everything. Google drive is Just crap - it doesn't leave real files on your disk and its buggy. Dropbox is better but has no application support. I think why no one has noticed is that a) the SkyDrive proponents as per much of the userbase isn't that vocal and b) everyone is blind to Microsoft these days. As for the risk if account shutdown and them peeking at stuff, this is a risk for any 'cloud provider'. If its a problem, keep a backup (which SkyDrive does as it mirrors everything rather than providing links) and don't use it for anything dodgy. I've had 9gb of mp3s up there for two years with no problems.

tharris0101 14y ago

Sounds cool but -and I know I'm biased- I won't let anything pull me back into an Office world.

gm 14y ago

I tried, it, really really liked it. LOVED the cheap prices for larger capacities, and was about to give them my money to share stuff with other people... Until I discovered the hard way that files shared across accounts CANNOT be synchronized to the local hard drive... It was a "What the fuck???" moment, surely MS cannot roll out without this critical functionality... Yet, it's correct, you can only sync to the local hard drive stuff that belongs to your account. If it's shared from someone else's account then you can only see the files online and need to download them if you need it locally. Big fail, and a showstopper for me. Dropbox does this just fine, BTW. so I am reluctant Dropbox user.

drharris 14y ago
I actually spoke to a SkyDrive team member about this one. The root problem is that once you have a truly shared folder, it takes up both people's quota (it has to, otherwise you could link a lot of free accounts to get extra space). The way it is implemented now makes it an explicit operation to move something to your skydrive, so you know the quota implications up-front. That said, they are trying to figure out a better solution for this. Ironically (or not), this is the reason I quit Dropbox, because they do not warn you that a shared folder will ruin your quota. Someone shared 50GB of photos, it started syncing, maxed the quota, and resulted in some important documents never making it to the cloud. Neither is an ideal solution. Nobody's solved this problem yet. Edit: The other reason was security; auto-sync is an excellent vector for malware to enter the system. Get into one person's skydrive, infect their shared folders, rinse and repeat.
- gm 14y ago
  Very true, all your points. But the need is still there. And I hear you about the quota problem. They should just make it take up the quota of the person doing the sharing... Or am I missing something? But in the meantime I am using Dropbox and I really, really did not want to become a Dropboxer.
  - pjzedalis 14y ago
    You are missing something. A person could conceivably create a ton of free accounts then fill them to the free space limitations. Share it with their primary account and then they have unlimited free space.

drharris 14y ago

I love Skydrive. It's the best of Dropbox combined with the best of Google Docs (even better, you get to use Office), and it all works so seamlessly I forget that I'm even using it. Maybe that's why nobody's talking about it, because it's not causing us any pain. Not to mention, it's decently cheaper than the other options and is well-integrated into all the devices I tend to use. The only pain point I still have (and nobody has solved this) is that both my wife and I have Live accounts, and we'd like to have a shared quota, with some private folders. For now we just log into the same account until a better solution is available. I'm not using it to store racy pictures or my social security numbers, so I'm not too concerned with privacy implications; there's no privacy to be had online anyway. But given it integrates seamlessly with Office, OneNote, iOS (mostly), Windows, Android, Xbox, and the web, I have nothing to complain about. Like I said, it works so well I forget I'm even paying for it, which is the best kind of service.

dpark 14y ago
> The only pain point I still have (and nobody has solved this) is that both my wife and I have Live accounts, and we'd like to have a shared quota, with some private folders. For now we just log into the same account until a better solution is available. Can you clarify what your need is? If you share a folder (with edit permissions) with your wife's Microsoft account, she can simply edit the contents of the folder directly. I understand that doesn't give you a shared quota, but I'm not clear why that's necessary. Presumably you're not worried about your wife abusing your space, since you're currently just sharing the account, and also since you married her. If you just need more space, the expanded storage plans for SkyDrive are extremely cheap. You could also create a group and use that to share with her. The group would get its own separate quota. I frankly haven't used groups much because I don't have a need for them, but I think they would be pretty much what you're asking for. It won't sync locally, though, if that's something you need.
- drharris 14y ago
  Local sync is of course the main need, and why we can't currently go the sharing route. Without sync, Skydrive is largely useless. For now, logging into the same account is ok. However, with Windows 8 tying into the live ID, it would be better if we each had our own separate logins, but had "family share" folders, for things like family documents and pictures. You can do that now, but the folders wouldn't sync. Nobody has solved the "family sync" problem yet. Give me separate accounts for each member, but have a shared space that everyone accesses, with local sync, and the ability to manage some sort of shared quota system (I don't want to have to pay for 3 accounts x 50GB, would rather pay once for 100GB allocated my own way). Especially when you tie such a system to Xbox live, you can start to see how a family-based cloud approach would be a killer app.

akandiah 14y ago

While I would like to try it, I'm put off by Microsoft's snooping of data: http://news.ycombinator.org/item?id=4265086 http://news.ycombinator.org/item?id=4265086

ChuckMcM 14y ago

The guy you can thank for the multi-edit-streams is Pavel Curtis. I got to sit down and chat with him about the development of the calculus involved and all I can say is the guy is a genius period.

qq66 14y ago

HN doesn't talk a lot about Microsoft Office, but it's by far the world's dominant software application. American adults spend 35 billion hours in Office every year, compared to 15 billion hours in Facebook, and 30 million PowerPoint presentations are created every day. Any service that handles document collaboration, such as Dropbox or Box, is dealing mostly with Microsoft Office files in the enterprise. Shameless plug here, since we tackle the same problem: People want to collaborate in real-time, but they also want to use the standard Microsoft Office applications that they already know how to use (well, maybe not the HN crowd, but the corporate crowd). The way people use Office today is completely broken, with filenames like "Marketing_v133_Tuesday_v4_Final_ReallyFinal.pptx" being emailed back and forth in a Lynchian version control nightmare. We're trying to go one step further with LiveLoop -- instead of bringing "save and sync" functionality to the desktop applications like SkyDrive, we bring true keystroke-by-keystroke real-time editing to Office. The first product we support is PowerPoint and we just launched two weeks ago. You can find us at http://getliveloop.com http://getliveloop.com .

bornhuetter 14y ago
I think a lot of developers ignore enterprise, and what I would call "the real world", often to their detriment. There really is a lot of room for talented developers in that area. I think real-time collaboration within office documents would be very valuable - but it has to be really reliable. Word and Excel are probably the key apps in my mind, rather than Powerpoint - I assume you plan these for later. How hard to you think it will be to get this working well enough for a Big 4 to trust it?
- qq66 14y ago
  LiveLoop, as it stands today, is really reliable in terms of data integrity -- we've been in alpha testing for months and have not lost a keystroke of data. However, because of the challenges of building this product through the COM API, we've had to make several design decisions which somewhat curtail the user experience, namely 1) some actions require explicit syncing, but the list of these actions shrinks every day, and 2) we need to momentarily steal focus at times. PowerPoint is definitely the most important application from a collaboration perspective -- although Excel spreadsheets are important, they tend to be owned by a fewer number of people, often just an individual. PowerPoints often reflect consensus decisions, which require much more collaboration across multiple organizational layers. We'll be doing Word and Excel of course, but right now our focus is on PowerPoint. I'm not sure what you mean by Big 4 (consulting?) but we are currently in a pilot at a Fortune 100 company.

uday_nandam 14y ago

Skydrive is great! I use it on my Macbook, iPhone and Win8(desktop)! The syncing is almost seamless now, works great through all ecosystems, and it is much easier to organize your documents on the Web and on the OS! Unlike GoogleDrive, which is a mess to deal with and try to organize your documents! The sharing options are also much better with Skydrive!

eykanal 14y ago

One thing I love about the hacker culture is that it functions like a (somewhat dysfunctional) meritocracy. Software that is good will often gain kudos, and bad software will be torn apart in critiques. This fails when it comes to large companies as old biases and conspiracy theories tend to kick in, but still, when Microsoft does something good, eventually people will fess up and write good things about it. It's definitely one of the nicer things about communities like this.

wslh 14y ago
And OneNote is great too!
- lifeisstillgood 14y ago
  I miss Clippy !
  - ZoFreX 14y ago
    Then you might like Ribbon Hero 2 [1], an interactive tour / tutorial around Microsoft Office starring clippy! [1]: http://www.ribbonhero.com/news.html http://www.ribbonhero.com/news.html
    - lifeisstillgood 14y ago
      Curiously this links to the lifecycle email thread - the idea is to create long running engagement with the user such that they learn things useful to them, also moving towards your product So a game where Clippy needs to say and an image to a doc, is a good idea. Oddly, by automating word I guess one product could be to create game engine for just such things.
- akx 14y ago
  Deity Here, yes. OneNote is one of those pieces of software I use honestly daily - bi-hourly, more or less, if only for Win+S - and no one knows about it! "Copy Text From Image" is also simply great. And I also use it to quickly document series of screenshots for functionality tests (or rather "worksforme"s).

6ren 14y ago

I've been looking for a rich text editor for linux - I got sick of OpenOffice's load times (47sec) and seeing Oracle's logo. It was inconceivable to me that MS has a webapp version of Word. Unfortunately, it takes 27sec to load a document (in chrome, slower in firefox). Abiword takes only 7sec (though the rendering is bit buggy sometimes, and it doesn't selects words when you x2 click).

eckyptang 14y ago
Odd it loads in 2 seconds for me even on ie9.

hamxiaoz 14y ago

One more thing: Skydrive is not blocked by GFW. On the other hand, both Google and Dropbox are blocked.

hollerith 14y ago
GFW == Great Firewall of China, probably.

mandeepj 14y ago

I am also using skydrive for few years now. All I can say that I am very happy. I keep my active codebase folder synced with skydrive and I am worry free from any loss. All my new code changes gets saved into cloud as soon as I hit "Save". Recently, MS released a skydrive explorer and drop-off folder which makes it more good. It crashes one in a while but not a big deal. It is stuck with one of my login.aspx.vb and never sync it. I don't know why. It created multiple versions of my few .docx files with my machine name appended but I think MS will fix it over time. Does the success of skydrive means slow death for dropbox and box.net? I seriously think dropbox should start some other business may be integration with FB was the step in that direction but the feature is not outrageously great.

dsolomon 14y ago

Saving for later.

rthomas6 14y ago

" * Windows Phone * iPhone and iPad * Other Phones" Heh.

zmmmmm 14y ago

I enthusiastically tried to use SkyDrive a while back but two things stopped me: no linux client and the Mac client required Lion (while my laptop is stuck on snow leopard). For me, the whole entire point of cloud storage is that it works seamlessly across all the platforms I use. If it doesn't do that it's got little value compared to the solutions that go across all the platforms I use.

DanielOcean 14y ago

Um, perhaps because they're a little overly strict on what you can keep in there. This photographer got his account banned and deleted after they found 4 partial nudes: http://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyclay/2012/07/19/is-microsoft-spying-on-skydrive-users/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyclay/2012/07/19/is-microsof... Which apparently is against it's long list of prohibited uses listed here: http://wmpoweruser.com/watch-what-you-store-on-skydriveyou-may-lose-your-microsoft-life/ http://wmpoweruser.com/watch-what-you-store-on-skydriveyou-m...

jasomill 14y ago
Nice. In particular, given that every email ever "could be considered 'junk mail'", Hotmail now forbids the transmission of email.

devb0x 14y ago

I opened my hotmail account in 98, it sure isnt going anywhere. Further I am loving skydrive. It doesn't sync on my nix boxes but it backs up via a simple drag drop. What's easier than that? I'm testing it now, but love the image gallery and simple UI. Nicely done.

StJobsFromGrave 14y ago

No offense, but if nobody has noticed, it probably sucks.

fiendsan 14y ago

i wouldnt say its great, its on the middle of the pack, there are things that still drag it down, there is a limit on the size of each file and number of files you can sync, also the software runs pretty slow and syncs pretty slow, its pretty stable on windows 7 but it kinda freaks out a lot on OSX and finally they actively scan the contents of your files in the cloud, and that is kinda were i draw the line, one thing is fully encripted drive, another is what dropbox does a sort of mix of security and ease, but microsoft goes out of its way to go through your files, thats a big brother nono, on the flip side, they do have realy cheap storage (i think google drive storage is ridiculous, especially comparing with dropbox) and their office/picture application support is probably the best, so i wouldnt say skydrive is all that great, its just ok.

valdiorn 14y ago

Oh, I noticed, allright! And here's why you SHOULD NOT use it! http://wmpoweruser.com/watch-what-you-store-on-skydriveyou-may-lose-your-microsoft-life/ http://wmpoweruser.com/watch-what-you-store-on-skydriveyou-m...

SpikeDad 14y ago

Yea, that's it. It's OUR fault (the technology users) that Microsoft is failing with SkyDrive. If only we abandoned all the other services that do us well and switch to something we don't a)know about and b)don't give a shit about then everything for MS will be fine. Who are these people writing this crap?