Redmond, Washington — Striving to keep its rivals at bay in its cloud-based services, software maker Microsoft SkyDrive users will find some anxiously desired enhancements the next time they log onto the cloud-based storage site, as the company announced that it is updating its SkyDrive cloud-based storage service with a slew of new features and enhancements.
As part of an ongoing endeavor to improve SkyDrive, the message from the Redmond Vole when it comes to cloud computing is clear; share and share alike, as it yesterday revealed a series of tweaks designed to make the site more efficient and user-friendly. Described in a blog posted yesterday and seen in the video below, the changes focus mostly on sharing and file management.
Microsoft emphasizes that the update, which also offers up better file management, HTML5 uploads and CSS transitions, is based on user feedback. Also bundled with this update are photo improvements (including geo-tagging support), support for more file types and performance enhancements.
Acknowledging that sharing folders and files on SkyDrive in the past posed a pretty difficult and unreliable task, but now sharing is the overriding theme of the revamped SkyDrive online portal, and Microsoft has simplified the ability to share.
Instead of setting up specific folders for sharing, you can now share individual files. However, now sharing a file enables you to send its link to other people. Besides, SkyDrive also now allows you to share or upload files to Facebook and LinkedIn as well where you can reach a variety of friends and contacts in one shot.
Moreover, managing your SkyDrive files is also now much easier. For instance, clicking on a Word document opens it in your browser via Microsoft’s Word Web App. From there, a Share command is displayed as one of the menu options. This method also applicable for images, PDFs, and a variety of other file types. By default, all your SkyDrive files are private unless you specifically elect to share them.
Key Updates:
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HTML5 Rich-Upload Capability: Currently, SkyDrive uses Silverlight for rich upload support. In the new release, Microsoft is adding drag and drop as a way to upload files and photos with browsers that support HTML5 File API, including Internet Explorer 10, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Apple Safari. Users can browse and use SkyDrive rather than waiting for uploads to complete with the new release, as well.
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Better Photo Slide-Show Support: Microsoft has “rebuilt and “re-introduced” photo slideshows with the release so that they work faster.
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Rich Viewing Support For PDFs: With the new SkyDrive update, users can click a PDF and load it using whatever available PDF viewer their browsers support. “This means that on IE, Firefox and Safari, PDFs will load in the browser if you have Adobe Acrobat installed. On Chrome, PDFs will load using Chrome’s native PDF viewer,” the post explains.
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Overall Performance Enhancements: Now many actions — like upload, delete, copy, move, rename, share and create — happen inline. The new SkyDrive release preloads more resources while users are signing in, making it faster to view and edit docs. Officials also claim that signing into the new SkyDrive will be “about 50 percent faster.”
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Simplified App Sharing, Especially For Office: The new SkyDrive release allows users to share from within apps and complete their tasks without having to think about structures of folders and subfolders. The new release allows for sharing of individual files, photos and documents within a folder. Users also can more simply share SkyDrive documents and photos via e-mail and by posting to their networks, like Facebook and LinkedIn.
Since introducing in 2007, SkyDrive is a key Microsoft product, the service has seen over 300 million Office documents uploaded, with an average of 17 million file uploads a month now recorded, and Windows Phone users are uploading around 120 photos per month from their mobile devices.
Still, the service has very much been left in the background to date, basically offering cloud storage that can be tied into a plethora of the software giant’s other products. The company has rolled out numerous other improvements, including support for more file types and a cleaner slideshow view for your photos.
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