I thought I’d pick up on the buzz about Google Drive’s imminent launch – and try and find out what the implications might be for B2B professionals. On the one hand it’s great Google looks set to improve its mere 1GB of free storage space with 5GB (comparable now with Apple’s iDrive and overtaking Dropbox’s 2GB offering) but outside the consumer arena – are business professionals really likely to want to store business critical content on this kind of cloud-based platform?

Industry analysts have previously warned about the perils of cloud-based platforms in terms of data security issues. This line of thinking stems from the possibility of negligent employees inadvertedly leaking confidential or sensitive data into a seemingly endless open space for anyone (competitors, the media and just the outright mischievous) to access. Data security is clearly an important factor to consider for B2B brands and businesses – though I imagine cloud-based businesses and experts will offer a convincing counter-argument to some of these concerns.

Another aspect I was wondering about with Google Drive, was will it allow Google to crawl your stored content in order to target you with more advertising?

The opportunities and issues surrounding the cloud in a B2B sense remain complex and varied. It’s a big IT issue of course – though its impact on marketing specifically remains less clear. I’d be interested to learn a bit more about Google Drive when it officially launches – and I’d be equally curious to hear whether it peaks the interest of B2B marketers?