Microsoft has removed the beta label from it’s hard drive in the cloud.

Windows Live Skydrive is a free online storage space with 5 GB of capacity. You can access you Skydrive from any computer with Internet access. You can create folders in your SkyDrive and decide permissions on each.

Nice.

I signed up for it in about 10 seconds, literally. I used my MSN login (which I already had) and it just activated. Nice and easy. The interface for Skydrive is nice and clean. It is all web-based, and it would be nice to be able to integrate this in with the operating system (inside Explorer).

I was also thinking if this steals any thunder from .Mac for Apple. You can use Skydrive if you are using an Apple computer because it is all web-based. The Idrive (inside .Mac) is also 5 GB, but you have to pay for a .Mac account whereas Skydrive is free. Like I said, though, being able to integrate with the OS rather than dealing with the clunky web interface is a real plus. If Microsoft releases a way to integrate SkyDrive with Explorer, that’ll be a really cool tool.

Some of the comments on the Skydrive announcement aren’t pretty. Perhaps they should have kept the beta label on it a little longer? All in all, though, I am enjoying watching what Microsoft is doing with their Windows Live package.