Brazilian site Gemind has posted some screenshots of Windows Live SkyDrive that suggest applications for PCs and Macs as well as paid storage options are coming to the service. We’ve heard rumors before that paid storage was on its way to SkyDrive, but the screenshots leaked today show that an extra 20GB, 50GB, or 100GB will be offered for $10, $25, or $50 per year, respectively. None of that is confirmed, but if that does end up being the final pricing, Microsoft will be severely undercutting competing services like Dropbox (which currently offers 50GB for $9.99 and 100GB for $19.99 per month).
While the premium storage options are good news for fans of the service, we’re sure many of them will be glad to hear about the rumors that native apps for both Windows and OS X are going to join the current iOS and Windows Phone offerings. Few details are given on the SkyDrive software that’s advertised in the screenshot (below) other than the fact that it’s free, but it’ll likely offer similar functionality to the current webapp, and software from competitors like Dropbox. Since it’s branded as SkyDrive software, we don’t think it’s the same as Windows Live Mesh, a service that syncs files from PCs and Macs in a 5GB cloud separate from SkyDrive — but maybe Microsoft is finally going to merge the two. For now we can’t accept any of this as being more than just a rumor, but we’ll let you know if we hear from Microsoft.
