Enterprise impact of Google Drive

AUSTRALIA: Following the launch of Google Drive, Richard Edwards, principal analyst at Ovum considers its inevitable use within the enterprise, which for many CIOs may present some headaches.

“All your stuff – work or play – is in one place” This is the commentary that accompanies Google’s YouTube video introducing its “all-new” file sharing service – Google Drive.

“On the face of it, this topic does not appear to concern the corporate IT manager or CIO, but chances are employees will start using this service to do more than share family photos and recipes.

“Corporate emails systems are notorious for their measly storage quotas and message attachment size limitations, and so the sharing and distribution of large corporate files, such as PowerPoint presentations, engineering drawings, and creative content, are an obvious use case for Google Drive.

“Concerned with data leakage and the loss of corporate intellectual property, the unsanctioned use of cloud storage services presents a real headache for corporate governance, risk, and compliance managers. Many organizations already block access to popular file sharing Web sites such as Dropbox, but Ovum believes there is an inevitability about the use of these services that warrants further investigation.

“Ovum advocates the evaluation of business-grade cloud drive and collaboration solutions, such as Box and Huddle. These services deliver user friendly, device agnostic, content sharing features similar to Google Drive, Dropbox, and Microsoft SkyDrive, but they also feature management and administration capabilities that Ovum deems essential from a compliance and audit perspective.”