Security Essentials update reporting, here and here. The user interface was tweaked to convey that it is a software update, not merely a malware definitions update. It's a windows only thing, and if you use other anti-malware software, do you care?
When MS Security Essentials first came out as a Microsoft security product it got fairly extensive tech-press attention, as with the first release of a new version 2.0. This upgrade was almost totally a ho-hum thing.
For Windows users, it is the most popular security software. It costs nothing extra, and requires less attention and tweaking than products such as Avast. A popular marketing plan of vendors besides McAfee, Kaspersky and Symantic is to offer a free on demand scan and a realtime internet traffic monitoring install, with bonus features if you buy the premium edition [or ads and nag-screens are killed if you pay]. Antimalware software is something you want in place and then do not want to worry about it; and renewal fee nagging as with Symantic and McAfee are avoided by using the for-free Microsoft product.
Google Drive is something that interfaces with multiple operating systems, and mobile devices [Android based, for sure, Apple products, probably].
The Google Drive homepage, here. The blog post, here.
Representative reporting, ars technica here, here, here, here, here. They offer 5 gig free cloud storage, with Dropbox at only 2 gig free.
Microsoft SkyDrive offers the most storage, and it is from Redmond with a Microsoft look and feel, and the firm will not fold overnight nor will Google, nor Amazon. (If you were to rely on cloud storage with a lesser vendor a worry would be an insolvency and loss of data.)
Local backup is necessary, (but many are not as diligent as they should be and are caught short if a drive crashes), yet offsite backup is the enterprise gold standard, and it is what the cloud offers.
I remember how in the early to mid-1980's when Slade Gorton was Washington State Attorney General, he had an antitrust database litigation-support operation running on a Prime minicomputer [a firm that has since folded], with removable 12-15 inch diameter plastic-encased hard disks. Gorton's people were using a bank safe deposit facility on his building's ground floor for storing offsite backup disks.
That was back when a regular PC base model had no hard drive, and the deluxe top of line model was 10 meg.
Now a terabyte drive is around or under a hundred bucks, with that being the main disincentive for individual consumer use of cloud storage.
Cloud enterprise server and storage services is the big-buck market that is being targeted by Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and others chasing the business. Start-up capital investment can be curbed that way, going onto payments and relying on the cloud, but will Boeing or Lockheed or BNSF move much that way?
Perhaps they already have.
The thing is a firm such as Amazon with its online retail servers, and Google with its search servers install to meet and serve peak demand, at that capacity level, with off peak storage in excess which they can market to others for further cash flow, to customers wanting and satisfied with 99% assurance of immediate data access, but willing to live with the very infrequent interrupted cloud service customers face when the servers are facing a data storm of preemptive owner use.
With local storage so cheap, and with chip memory allowing substantial storage on portable devices, the cloud vendors seem to be gravitating to a business plan of offering free service to individuals, to test the market and start with market share in their favor in that sector, while courting enterprise customers as a bread-and-butter cash flow.
The firm that seems to have the most steady market is Cisco, where its router technology dominates on the web. I remember ten years ago talking to a cousin in Louisiana, mentioning Cisco when discussing likely safe investments. She'd never heard of it. It was big then, and had router dominant share then. The biggest question with Cisco might be how big the market demand remains, as web backbone and connection infrastructure is built out. There is always India, China, and Eastern Europe, all probably still building infrastructure.
