Google's wish is to host all user data such as files, emails, bookmarks and pictures on its servers
Inadvertently published notes suggest that Google is preparing a hosted storage service

Google planning GDrive storage service

Online storage would weaken Microsoft's hold on user data

Written by Tom Sanders in California

Google is preparing to launch a hosted storage service, according to notes that the company inadvertently published as part of a PowerPoint presentation for financial analysts last week.

"The notes were deleted from the slides we posted because they were not intended for publication," Google spokeswoman Lynn Fox told vnunet.com. She declined to comment further on the services that the company is currently developing.

The notes mentioned Google's desire to host all user data such as files, emails, bookmarks and pictures on its servers rather than the user saving the information on their computers.

"We already have efforts in this direction in terms of GDrive, GDS and Lighthouse, but all of them face bandwidth and storage constraints today," the notes stated. 

Offering to store this data allows users access to their data at any time and from any device, and also frees such information from Microsoft.

"This theme will help us make the client less important (thin client, thick server model) which suits our strength vis-à-vis Microsoft and is also of great value to the user," the notes said.

The unintended publication of the notes forced Google to file the event with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which stated that certain of the annotated comments were not intended to be presented at the analyst day.

The SEC filing mostly contained predictions about Google's future financial performance because the company is required by law to make such information broadly available.

Google does not need to disclose plans for future products because they do not directly affect future earnings.

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