SkyDrive- Innovative Free File Hosting by Microsoft?

Who would have thought, the corporate giant coming out with a file hosting service for free? Well, with Microsoft's constant fluctuations in stock maybe more than one would think, but this even surprised me. Microsoft's "SkyDrive" is a free file hosting service offering a beginning 5 gb of space, proceeding "Windows Folders" which was available to beta testers last year. The service's name is accurate, and the style is parallel with other similar services out there such as Omnidrive which provides 1 gb of free space. The webpage gives you a feel as if you were actually looking through a hard drive at files, including folders which at default are labeled like those on your computer. Files such as Video, Music, Documents and Pictures to organize whatever you upload. All hosted online and accessible online, the user can put the files in various folders and select whether or not they are viewable to the public, private, or even friends. Yes, file hosting friends, sounds like a feature that may be out of place. But at the same time this could allow private file sharing between groups of people other than just "friends" for easy access to important things. This could easily be seen as an attempt to link your Live ID with everything.

The design is very elegant and simple, and if you have had to host and move alot of files around like me, this is music to the ears. Click here, for a full size screen shot of the welcome page of SkyDrive. The design is simple and broken down to the bone, Personal Files, Shared Files, and Public Files. All of which have options on their privacy.

Uploading and downloading is also very simple, as you can see in this screen shot. The web address is provided if you would like to give it out to anyone for them to download your file. Once they reach the file or folder page, the download bottom is located right above the file. There is surprisingly no wait, no annoying image you have to type in or password to download the file. Just simply click "download" and the prompt to download will appear. Uploading is just as simple, allowing you to upload multiple files at once and then organize them in any way you wish.
Click here and try it out. You will probably be just as surprised as me. Or, also check out Microsoft Surface-Amazing Touch-screen Super Computer!