Rakuten launches cloud storage with unlimited file transfers, targets businesses and individuals, with free 10GB storage
Rakuten launches cloud storage with unlimited file transfers, targets businesses and individuals, with free 10GB storage
Rakuten Drive also lets users view and edit documents and spreadsheets in Microsoft 365
Highlights:
- Rakuten Drive offers free 10GB storage and unlimited file transfers, unlike competitors.
- Integrates with Microsoft 365 for document viewing and editing.
- Targets both individuals and businesses with separate plans.
- Paid "PRO" version increases storage to 1TB, allows bigger file uploads, and extends transfer link expiration.
- Future integration with Rakuten's loyalty program planned.
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Oh, boy! As an American consumer, I'm even more perplexed what the hell they are.
Like 15 years ago, Rakuten seemed to be a normal ecommerce site. I think they bought buy.com or something to get a foothold in the US market. Then they pivoted to being some sort of cashback referral service.
I'm not really sure why that would lead customers to think "yeah, I want cloud storage from the people who made a weird janky digital simulation of the Piggly Wiggly Value Club Card!"
(AWS made it work because they could say "we have the infrastructure to host one of the busiest sites on earth, it's good enough for you", but Rakuten does not have that credibility in the US)
They do a lot of things, mostly related to online retailing in Japan. They bought Ebates, presumably to get all the shopping data they collect, it wasn't really a pivot. (Also they'd been doing financial-ish stuff like rewards programs before apparently. I went and read their Wikipedia article when I saw this post.)
They also bought Kobo, a Kindle competitor that I actually like. (Partially because you can still easily remove their DRM).
The hardware is better, too. It'll be a cold day in hell before I go back to a Kindle.