Colder weather isn't freezing the storage wars, a point evidenced as Google heats things up by offering Chromebook buyers 1 TB of cloud space for two years.
The two years of storage can be redeemed for any eligible Chromebook purchased through Google's Play Store or authorized dealer. The Google-powered laptops start at about $200, $40 less than two years of 1 TB storage on Google Drive, according to Google.
"That's enough space to keep more than 100,000 awkward holiday sweater pics safe and shareable in Drive," says a Google representative in a blog post. "With that much free storage, you can use your Chromebook for work, play and pretty much everything else you'll do this holiday season."
Chromebook buyers have until Jan. 15, 2015, to redeem their two years of 1 TB storage space.
The holidays have been the latest gambit used by tech companies that are warring against one another to encourage users to rely on their cloud storage.
A few weeks before Google's cloud and Chromebook bundle, Amazon uncapped the photo limits on its storage space for its Prime subscribers. The approach makes Prime more appealing to new customers, but it also encourages current subscribers to rely more on Amazon to secure digital memories.
Again, the holidays were used as the pretext for doling out an extra helping of cloud service.
"This time of year in particular, families are capturing thousands of photos of holiday parties, family gatherings and opening presents," said Greg Greeley, vice president of Amazon Prime. "With free unlimited photo storage, we're providing one more reason for members to use Prime every day."
While Amazon now allows Prime members to upload an unlimited amount of photos to its cloud, the e-commerce company has changed restrictions on video files. Video uploads are still capped at 2 GB in size and 20 minutes in duration.
For those wondering why Microsoft hasn't recently expressed any holiday cheer in expanding its cloud storage offering, the Redmond, Wash., company opened the floodgates back in October.
Microsoft offered unlimited storage space on OneDrive to draw consumers to its Office 365 service and, apparently, the company is all in now.
"We're thrilled to continue our quest of making OneDrive the world's cloud storage leader -- and, always a key part of the best productivity service with Office 365. We're all in," said Chris Jones, corporate vice president of OneDrive and SharePoint.
