The big heat of cloud storage: business model or still in the cloud

Every time you log in to Weibo, the small Bo Secretary will warmly remind you that there are 2G "micro-disk" for your use; whenever you log in to the mailbox, email prompts will tell you that the mailbox has 1G disk space is idle; whenever you log in to the search engine, you will also tell you have a large 15G network disk is free of charge ... As an Internet user, this "free lunch" from the sky feels happy, but for many Internet service providers pouring into the cloud storage market, they have to face the embarrassment that users may turn around once they charge. This situation is similar to the email service that once tried to charge, why is there still a lot of giants like Sina, Baidu, NetEase and Tencent flocking to the cloud storage market?

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Cloud storage products commonly known as network disk. Consumers can store some personal files, photos and other information in the "cloud" and use different devices to access the data at any time, so as to prevent the computer hard disk damage caused by the loss of files. Network disk operation is also very simple, only need to register the relevant product account, and the relevant files to the cloud server can be used whenever you want to download it.

"Although the concept of the network in the Internet users for a long time, but based on cloud storage Technology Network disk in the concept is still different." "Senior Internet person Li Jinda in an interview with the Nanfang Daily, the product concept of cloud storage explained. "The core of cloud storage is the combination of application software and storage devices that enables the transformation of storage devices to storage services through application software." "Li Jinda that cloud storage is not a simple internet store, but rather a brand new Internet service." "What needs to be emphasized is the concept of ' cloud ', for users of cloud storage, it is not a specific storage device or upload device, but a storage service provided by a cloud of many storage devices and servers, and the best scenario for this service is in the case of multiple networked terminals. ”

According to relevant statistics, there are expected to be more than 15 billion networked devices worldwide by 2015. Whether it is a mobile phone or a tablet, it is now possible to connect to the Internet to play its biggest role. Preangel investor Wang Lijie has analyzed the relationship between cloud storage and mobile Internet: "With the popularity of smart phones, tablet computers and other intelligent terminals, the amount of data owned by individual users is increasing in geometric multiples, whether from the security of storage or with the convenience of access, It is a general trend to upload data to the cloud rather than local collections. He said that the rise of the mobile internet has made the contradiction between the content storage and migration between devices more prominent, and personal cloud storage is the best way to solve the problem.

Direct charge is too early

"As long as the registered account, large-capacity cloud storage space for free." "Netizens in a website to see such slogans, decisively registered account, and then their own computer movies, music, photos and other documents uploaded to the cloud storage space." "This disk space plus before I registered a few are not big enough, but also to register a few web sites to the contents of the computer can be put up, so that my computer's hard drive will be liberated, and would like to upgrade the hard drive, now can be saved." "In the view of the small side, the network disk is becoming his supernumerary" mobile hard drive, and the reason why so keen on the service, the most important is because they are "free".

But in fact, in overseas markets, cloud storage is not a free lunch from the start. "Abroad, Dropbox is one of the most famous businesses that provide cloud storage services for individual users, using the freemium model of free Trial + premium service fees, where the initial 2GB space is free, and thereafter monthly storage charges are required." "According to Li Jinda, for overseas users who have been made easy by Dropbox, they tend to pay more for their use when synchronization requirements increase." "Maybe it's the reason foreign users have pay habits," he said. "Li Jinda said.

But Dropbox's approach may not work in China. According to the reporter understand, in the domestic many cloud storage users, the vast majority are similar netizen small side this kind of free user. Relevant statistics show that among many cloud storage service providers, the proportion of paid users is less than 1/10000. "This situation is related to the level of acceptance of the service charge model by domestic users, there is also the current domestic cloud storage service providers of Internet services to the positioning of this product, Baidu, Sina and other development of cloud storage services for the purpose of more platform for value-added, increase user stickiness, enhance the scale effect, Getting benefits directly from cloud storage is not their focus. Li Jinda said, although the current network disk has Baidu network disk, the city network disk, Jinshan network disk, 115 network disk, Microsoft SkyDrive, such as dozens of, "but as the group buying industry, the industry oligarchs have not established, chaos and war stage can talk about what business model?" ”

Enterprise Market or outlet

Of course, it is not that no vendor is working to build a cloud-storage business model. NetEase Cloud Reading Content Center Operations director Nie Wei told reporters, "NetEase cloud reading background database can intelligently store and analyze the user's reading behavior, through the user click, share, send data statistics, to adjust the source of the different content of the layout of the location, thus forming a user's personality reading. "With the help of the image function of the cloud storage service, NetEase actually plays the data analysis to the user action that triggers the content subscription behavior, and then through these analyses, recommends to the user the reading material closer to the user's personalized demand." "This is actually a big data business, popular some is the user data mining, the final business is not the cloud storage services itself, but related to the dissemination, marketing and other commercial services, the charges will be the target of the enterprise needs." Reational AB analyst Xing said.

In fact, in addition to the introduction of cloud storage services for individuals, there are some Internet service providers have begun to dig business user market opportunities. According to the introduction, cool disk has been with the United States and other applications Mito services to discuss cloud storage cooperation, cool disk CEO Guzhi found that these application development teams themselves also have strong cloud storage requirements, and from the files uploaded by users, the cool disk itself on the server also happens to have stored a considerable proportion of these development team file data. "This year, when the pace of individual user markets slows down, you can try something in the corporate market at the same time." "Guzhi said. However, compared with the individual user market, the most obvious characteristics of the enterprise market is "not you are willing to spend money to do marketing, this market will certainly be able to rise", to a large extent, the growth of the enterprise market depends on the growth rate of the enterprise customers themselves.

and has been actively engaged in the mobile internet field of Baidu, the Baidu World Congress, held in September this year, also officially announced the opening of core cloud capabilities, including cloud storage, large data intelligence and cloud computing, and the simultaneous release of "Seven weapons" that help developers reduce costs, gain access to users, and enhance scalability. It is the first time Baidu has opened up the three core cloud capabilities of cloud storage, large data intelligence and cloud computing, but its main target has quietly switched from individual users to application developers, a practice similar to Amazon's success in offshore cloud storage and cloud computing services. In this respect, the domestic database business expert Feng Dahui also said that the cloud storage enterprise market also has a lot of development space, in many vertical areas, such as picture storage, video storage, static small file storage, have the potential to dig.

(Responsible editor: The good of the Legacy)