iCloud为何无力一统江湖

    上周一，史蒂夫•乔布斯（Steve Jobs）掀开了iCloud的面纱。许多人为此欢呼雀跃。

    苹果公司（Apple）终于挺进云领域。其云服务足以与谷歌公司（Google）和亚马逊公司（Amazon）最近推出的同类服务相抗衡。该服务可以提供音乐、照片、视频、应用、以及其他文件的存储，而且通过任一款苹果设备均能便捷地访问这些内容。

    另一方面，苹果的新动作也引发了部分人的疑虑，即iCloud是否会威胁到现有的第三方服务，特别是那些与之特性相近且应用广泛的基于云的存储和文件同步服务。

    Dropbox首席执行官兼联合创始人德鲁•休斯顿却不以为然。他说：“难道两者有什么冲突吗？”今年4月，这家公司深受欢迎的文件同步服务刚刚突破了2,500万用户的大关。“史蒂夫•乔布斯的iCloud是为苹果系统开发的，而我们的服务则面向所有人。二者其实完全风马牛不相及。”

    休斯顿还以自己的母亲为例说明问题。她拥有一台搭载Windows 操作系统的上网本，还有一台Android设备。对于她这类与苹果封闭式操作系统绝缘的人来说，iCloud根本不会产生什么影响。此外，休斯顿认为，由于iCloud刚刚问世，用户多大程度上能得心应手地管理并同步其iCloud数据，仍然是个未知数。用户能否熟练使用不同的苹果用户账户与其他人共享自己收藏的音乐？用户能否在编辑Word文档的同时，与Dropbox或者谷歌文档（Google Docs）的用户共享该文件？

    “Dropbox在各类不同平台上都能顺畅运行。”休斯顿表示：“用户会对苹果提出同样的要求，但我认为，他们不可能如愿以偿。”

    Box.net是家面向企业用户的内容管理服务提供商。其首席执行官兼联合创始人亚伦•莱维对苹果进入云服务领域一事欣然接受。他也赞同休斯顿的观点，认为iCloud并不会挤垮Box.net等第三方云内容提供商。[这家初创公司最近刚刚在一轮融资中从风险资本机构安德森•霍洛维茨基金（Andreessen Horowitz）等投资者手中融到了4,800万美元。]

    他说：“史蒂夫•乔布斯不过是借iCloud来整合消费者从苹果购买的产品。其它企业完全不必担心。”

    如果iCloud确实像宣传的那样好，那对庞大的苹果用户而言自然是锦上添花；但其他用户则很可能会撞上苹果“围墙花园”的外墙，从而对其心生怨恨。

    莱维进一步分析说，许多消费者和用户都不会考虑只从单一的某一家公司采购全部所需产品。比如，多数用户都不会只从微软（Microsoft）一家公司采购从台式机、操作系统、到打印机等外围设备的全部产品。

    “对云服务领域内的初创公司来说，有利之处在于，这儿并非苹果的天下，也不是微软或谷歌某一家公司的天下。”他说：“如果用户需要连接不同技术平台的软件和解决方案，云服务对于个人用户来说绝对是个好东西；而对企业用户而言，云服务也绝对能带来战略优势。我们认为，云领域的致胜战略在于：开放、互联和不可知。”

    译者：大海

    When Steve Jobs took the wraps off iCloud earlier this week, many cheered.

    Apple was finally charging into the cloud space with a service that could stand up to recent offerings from Google (GOOG) and Amazon (AMZN), providing storage of music, photos, videos, apps and other documents with quick and easy access via any Apple device.

    On the flip side, the announcement left some wondering whether iCloud threatens current third-party offerings, particularly popular cloud-based storage and file-syncing services that offer similar features.

    "Where's the fight?" says Drew Houston, CEO and co-founder of Dropbox, the popular file-syncing service that whizzed past the 25 million user milestone last April. "Steve Jobs is building this for the Apple (AAPL) world, but we're building this for everyone. It's really apples and oranges."

    Houston brings up the example of his mom, who owns a Windows netbook and Android device. For people like her, who are outside Apple's closed ecosystem, iCloud won't cut it. And because iCloud is still in its infancy, Houston feels there are still questions surrounding how thoroughly users will be able to manage and sync up their iCloud data. Can you share your music with others with different Apple user IDs? Can you share a Word doc with another user a la Dropbox or Google Docs and work on the same file simultaneously?

    "Dropbox works well across various platforms," Houston says. "Everyone will demand the same of Apple, and I just don't think they're going to get that."

    Aaron Levie, CEO and co-founder of Box.net, the enterprise-focused content management service, welcomes Apple to the space but echoes Houston, saying that iCloud won't crush third-party operators like his own. (Most recently, the startup raised $48 million during a funding round that included investors like venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.)

    "Steve Jobs is really selling this as a way to synchronize all the things that you're buying from him, and enterprises aren't really worried about that," he says.

    If iCloud works as advertised, it'll be a boon for a good chunk of Apple device owners, but others may run up against the walls of Apple's so-called "walled garden" and quickly come to resent them.

    Levie argues that many consumers and businesses don't think about buying the full vertical solution from a single company: meaning, many don't just go to, say, Microsoft (MSFT) exclusively to buy everything from their desktop, operating system, and peripherals like printers.

    "The advantage for any startup in this space is that this is not an Apple-owned world, a Microsoft-owned world, or a Google-owned world," he says. "You want software and solutions that sit in between the various technologies that you're using, and I think that's a boon for any of the consumer players. It's absolutely a strategic advantage for all of the enterprise players, and we think it's really the winning strategy in this space: to be open, to be connected, to be agnostic."