Dropbox doubles capacity for Pro users to compete with Google Drive

ONLINE STORAGE VENDOR Dropbox has doubled the capacity of storage Dropbox Pro account holders while introducing a service that offers 500GB of storage.

Dropbox has faced increased competition in recent months from Google and Microsoft with their respective Drive and Skydrive services. However the firm has tried to keep hold of its existing Dropbox Pro customers by doubling their space and introducing a 500GB service.

Dropbox's announcement means that those users who were previously signed up to its 50GB service will get 100GB, while those who previously had 100GB will be bumped up to 200GB. The firm has yet to reveal how much its 500GB service will cost, but given that Google offers 400GB for $20 a month, Dropbox will have to be close to that figure in order to compete.

Since Google launched its Drive service Dropbox's pricing has seemed out of touch, and while the firm will have lost some customers, this move could help it stay relevant for a bit longer. However given that Dropbox relies on Amazon's S3 storage cloud, its prices can only go so low, whereas firms such as Google and Microsoft run their own clouds, allowing them to benefit from economies of scale.

Dropbox, like all internet service providers, will be hoping that the majority of its users fail to make a significant dent in the space it has given away. Quite why users want to store hundreds of gigabytes of personal data on a public cloud is another question.

Dropbox said those users eligible for an upgrade will have it automatically applied. µ