Cloud storage pioneer Bitcasa is killing its cloud storage
“We are discontinuing our Bitcasa Drive service in order to focus our full attention on our growing platform business,” the company said in a short blog post, as first reported by VentureBeat. “All account owners must take action to avoid losing their files.”
Users who need assistance recovering and preserving their files should use Bitcasa’s Help Center, the company said.
It’s been nearly five years since Bitcasa, then described as an “ambitious startup,” began offering unlimited cloud storage space for $10 a month—jumping into a then-young part of the tech sector that was crowded with newcomers like Dropbox, SugarSync, and Box. The business had evolved over time: It stopped giving users unlimited storage in 2014, shifting to a model where users could pay $10 a month for 1TB and $99 a month for 10TB.
The storage service will permanently delete “all accounts and stored data” at 11:59 p.m. PT on May 20.
Why it matters: The decade began with an explosion of cloud-storage competitors flooding the market. Now the herd is beginning to thin a little bit—particularly since big players like Google, Microsoft, and Apple have long since begun offering their own services, with Microsoft and Apple tying OneDrive and iCloud into their respective operating systems. Even the big guys are still struggling to figure out how to handle cloud storage allocations; Microsoft recently reduced its free 15GB storage tier for OneDrive to 5GB, and discontinued the 15GB camera roll storage bonus.
Cloud storage isn’t going away, but landscape of providers may still need some shaking out—perhaps, as Business Solutions suggests today, with competitors focusing on features instead of the continuing the race-to-the-bottom on prices.