Cloud computing and storage has become a main stream service that many large technology players are trying to get into to help create new revenue stream. Amazon, Google and Apple have made significant investments in the sector and startups like Dropbox or Box.net have made a disruptive impact in the sector. However, all these company’s offer proprietary solution that a customer will need to pay to use. Open source project ownCloud hopes to give consumers more choice by giving its file storage, synchronization, and sharing software for free. The PHP based ownCloud got launched three years ago by Frank Karlitschek. His free solution has now grown and is available in 42 languages. The project has several releases under its belt including a core group helping the project move forward. There is also a commercial project that generates revenue by offering services to enterprise clients.
Most of the features of ownCloud are like basic Dropbox features including file storage and synchronization while also offering optional contacts and calendar synchronization. The biggest advantage of ownCloud is that a user can install the software on any server they own unlike other providers who only sell the service while they own their hardware. Another advantage is that any user that installs ownCloud is defining their own user policies and access policies.
Some interesting features including a mobile client and an ability to connect to third-party storage.
OwnCloud commercial version goes above and beyond the free version by offering a number of more advanced features. Enterprise users can utilize MS SQL and Oracle along with enterprise groupware and directory services applications. organizations also have a white-label mobile client that is great for users looking for on-premise data storage and control.
ownCloud 5 will get its first beta release soon and Karlitschek says will have three major components including integration, performance, and usability. The new release has an updated interface along with streamlined user interface. There is also a photo gallery that has a number of sharing options along with an updated contacts application, calendar, video player and PDF viewer.
ownCloud also has a number of administrator and backend features that make it a great alternative for users. The option to connect to a number of different back-end account databases like UNIX user accounts and LDAP are good solid features. The file-caching system has also been updated which gives a 500% improvement over the previous version. There also a new full-text search by Lucene which lets users search their stored data content giving it a feature that others do not offer.
Source: TechCrunch
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