Microsoft: SkyDrive better after moving to HTML5

Microsoft has updated their cloud storage service and adopted the HTML5 technology. SkyDrive has become faster after implementing hardware acceleration.

While Apple unveiled their iCloud service at the beginning of the month, Microsoft also wants to get into the cloud. They have used the announcement that any update to their SkyDrive will take place, with all users to be updated by the 27th of June.

Microsoft’s cloud storage service (25 GB) is even faster now as the HTML5 and CSS3 technologies have been integrated in addition to hardware acceleration which is now supported in Internet Explorer 9.

The new SkyDrive is also starting to integrate Silverlight, even though the move hasn’t been completely made, as can be seen with the file import module.

To look at photos and videos though, everything is done with HTML5 in addition to the Silverlight player. Microsoft has pointed out that they are using the HTML5 video base for playing H.264 videos, with each video being up to 100 Mb in size (previously 50 Mb).

You should be able to see countless photos, with CSS3 transitions allowing SkyDrive to dimension and organise the thumbnails with small animations, no matter the size of the open window.

While the new SkyDrive has been designed for use with all modern browsers, with IE9 and Windows 7, you can of course benefit from pinning it to the task bar so that you can quickly access various functions like the creation of Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents stored in the cloud.

The interface has also been changed to make it a central storage place for documents. Groups can be integrated into the left column, with the results being that everything is a lot clearer than in the past making SkyDrive easier to use.

Microsoft also insists that the service has become faster. This is a critical point, as SkyDrive is also used by Office Web Apps.

For some users, the new SkyDrive is already available, with some of its new features presented in the video below: