Cloud Storage Gets New Player In Google Drive

Google is lacing up its gloves and stepping into the cloud storage ring with its own cloud storage locker service called Google Drive to rival the widely popular Dropbox and Apple iCloud.

Google Drive is expected to launch within the next few months, according to The Wall Street Journal, which quoted unnamed sources close to the product. The Google Drive cloud storage service will let users store content in Google's cloud and access it from different devices. Google Drive will let users upload and share photos, documents, videos and other content in the cloud.

The report indicates that Google Drive also will be tightly integrated with Gmail, allowing users to share content via links embedded into e-mails, similar to Microsoft's SkyDrive services. Integration with Google Apps, Google's cloud collaboration and communication suite, could be imminent as well.

[Related: Watch Out Dropbox: Up-And-Comers Want Cloud Storage, Share Of The Spotlight ]

According to the report, Google Drive will be free for most business users and consumers. Users requiring a larger cloud storage locker will be able to pay for a premium service.

Google representatives could not be reached for immediate comment Thursday morning.

Cloud storage has become a major battleground in recent months, with companies looking to one-up each other with the amount of free storage they offer in the ether. Dropbox is seen as the market leader, boasting more than 45 million users that save 1 billion files every three days. In October, Dropbox raked in $250 million in Series B funding to continue its cloud storage trajectory.

Along with Dropbox, Google Drive will join other cloud storage services such as Apple iCloud, which the tech titan launched to enable users to store and share content between devices, including the iPhone and iPad; and Box, which recently revealed that it has tripled its enterprise cloud storage revenue.

The new service would join Google Music, which takes advantage of Google search technology as well as its ability to tap the tastes of a user's friends to recommend songs. Launched last November, the service allows users to upload their entire music libraries to Google's servers, but uploads are limited to music files. Rival Amazon allows documents, pictures and videos to be uploaded.