Google provides so many services for free, I am rather surprised that it doesn’t offer a free FTP hosting service for small business customers.

Sure, Docs, Apps, and even GMail and Picasa can serve as repositories of files, but they aren’t super convenient for transferring large files back and forth. Will there ever be a Google FTP?

Most FTP services aren’t that expensive. You can get storage for up to 10 GB for less than $10.00 USD or $20.00 USD per month, depending on where you have your FTP site hosted. That’s not a colossal expense for any business.

Small businesses, however, suffer more from the nickel-and-dime effect, and that $10.00 USD can be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

On top of that, not all FTPs are created equal. Some have limits on the amount of data that can be transferred back and forth, charging you more when you go over the limit.

To be fair, Google is very generous with storage in its Gmail accounts. I currently have access to 6.8 GB of storage in my e-mail, and can retrieve anything I’ve sent/received at any time, from nearly any platform.

Google’s photo-sharing service, Picasa, grants you 1 GB of storage. Not bad.

Docs limits file uploads to 500 Kb for HTML, .doc and .rtf files. Spreadsheets can’t be larger than 1 MB, and Presentations can’t surpass 10 MB if uploaded from a PC, 2 MB if transferred from the Web, or just 500 Kb via e-mail.

It’s not uncommon for me to have to send a large batch of picture files, or a video file, here or there. Sending pictures one by one is a major pain in the rear. I often pack them into a single folder and then zip the file but even zipped, the folders can still be bulky.

Most e-mail systems, even Gmail, can’t really handle 30 MB attachments all that well, necessitating the need for FTP to transfer the bigger files/folders.

So, Google, just out of curiosity, why don’t you offer an FTP service for small business? Afraid it will be used to transfer copyrighted material such as movies and/or music?

Have the MPAA and RIAA already squashed any ideas you might have had? What’s the deal? Am I stuck finding some anonymous storage facility?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 10th, 2008 at 11:05 am and is filed under Google, Technology, Web. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.  Both comments and pings are currently closed.