Yahoo! Briefcase
So goes the e-mail I got from the good guys at Yahoo. I have a little less than two weeks to log on and retrieve my files. After the closing day on March 30, 2009, I will no longer be able to get the files I have there.
Yahoo did not say why it was closing the file storage service in its e-mail, but with all the problems that Yahoo has been experiencing in the past few months, I have to say it is because they are losing money and would rather concentrate on their core business. Which is, which is… hmmmn… what IS Yahoo’s core business, anyway? Officially, however, Yahoo maintains that “users have outgrown the service” especially when you got unlimited e-mail storage via Yahoo Mail as well as media sharing sites like Flickr.
That’s a nicer way to putting it than saying “We’re running out of money!”
Yahoo has been doing a lot of realignments in the past months after failed bids to merge with either Google or Microsoft, including getting a new Chief Yahoo (and in the process pissing off its interim chief).
The thing is, I have forgotten I even had a Yahoo Briefcase account. And when I checked, I saw that the files I have there were from my college days, and none of it was over a megabyte. You see, Yahoo Briefcase was one of the first to offer online file storage. At that time, “large” files were a little over 100kb, while your flash disks back then were actually 1.44 MB floppy disks. Having a Yahoo Briefcase account meant that your old files stay in existence instead of being deleted or backed up on floppies, which were notorious for being unreliable and bad sectors.
That said, the 4MB or so of storage offered by Briefcase was godsend! This was a time when e-mail boxes were limited to just 1MB, before it was upped to 4Mb and then 10MB. Back then a 10MB e-mail box was generous. And so was a 4MB online storage service.
But as the Internet grew, newer players entered the market. Xdrive, Adrive and other more dynamic file storage services came into the picture and people just forgot about Yahoo Briefcase. Until the recent e-mail reminded people it was closing.
It came as a shock that Yahoo even offered a premium subscription for its Briefcase service. As you all know, the minimum for FREE storage services nowadays is around 50MB. You get more for good behavior.
Goodbye Yahoo Briefcase. I hate to say it, but this is one ‘unlamentable’ passing!
For more info about this, you can view Yahoo! Briefcase’s official QA and Help Page.
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This is exactly what happened to me. I got an email from Yahoo about Yahoo Briefcase and I didn’t know I even have one. Sure enough I got a couple of video clips and documents stored which I downloaded to my pc. File dated November 2003…time flies
Thank you for sharing Zahir…