At the end of the month, the Yahoo! Briefcase file hosting service will be no more. This leaves a larger gap in Yahoo’s offerings for cloud dwellers.
This move by the company isn’t surprising. Yahoo! is better at providing online destinations than the kind of infrastructure demanded by today’s Internet-based power users (aka “cloud dwellers”).
Who are the cloud dwellers? They’re users who want to use 100 percent of their stuff (data, email, calendar, music, etc.) available online all of the time. Cloud dwellers want web-based alternatives to installed software for email, calendaring, word processing, spreadsheets, databases and photo editing. They want to be able to work from any Internet-based computer — regardless of location or operating system.
They want to do it all. And, they want it all for free.
Free file hosting services from Box.net, DropBox, mediafire and others do a better job of providing the advanced storage capacity, security, synchronization, backup, and sharing features that cloud dwellers demand.
In a Web 2.0 world, Yahoo recognizes that “users and (other web-based) services have outgrown what the Yahoo! Briefcase service can provide.” Thus, Yahoo! Briefcase follows Yahoo! Music Jukebox, Yahoo! Photos, and Yahoo! Auctions into obscurity.
Credits: Cartoon by Geek & Poke.
About Troy Janisch