The Next Web

Wuala trashes barriers and should now focus on building trust

By Ernst-Jan Pfauth
December 16, 2008
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Those of you who aren’t shifting their desktop office to an online one are falling behind. The new generation of ultra geeks is working in… “the cloud”! One of the cool European start-ups facilitating this trend is Wuala, a Swiss online hard disk service. Since the launch in August (after a three-year Alpha), the Zurich-based start-up has “gained substantial traction” – says co-founder and CEO Dominik Grolimund. “The user base grows quickly and 30 million files have been stored and shared already.” Grolimund now expects further growth since he and his team are making the service more accessible.

Taking those barriers away

Wuala trashes barriers and should now focus on building trustA new release with a new web interface and API will enable Wuala users to make selected files available on the web, so they can be easily and directly accessed by anyone or embedded in blogs and websites. Users can now also send “secret” links to privately shared files without requiring recipients to register or sign up to view the files. See a typical Swiss example here.

Really, you can trust us

When I wrote that you’re falling behind if you’re not operating in the magical cloud, I of course exaggerated. There are millions of people who wouldn’t even consider storing their most precious and important files online. People prefer their “safe” desktop. Thus the gentlemen from Wuala focus on security. Every press release consists a mention of their unique encryption technology – developed in the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich.

The latest one also contains some reassuring words from co-founder and CTO Luzius Meisser: “Security is a major priority for us. We want our users to feel confident that their files are completely secure in Wuala. They never have to worry about who has access to them because they are in total control.” It shows they realize that their biggest challenge will be to convince average Joe.

What about you? Are you, probably an early adopter, already storing your files online on services like Wuala and Box.net?


  • Using box.net since 2006. Much better than Wuala. Doesnt require any software etc.
  • Ben G
    For encryption technology (or any security technology), the last thing you want is unique and special. You want something well analysed and field tested.

    Also not swiss ;-)
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_AG#Back-doo...
  • I'm using it and quite like it. Sure, the interface and functionality can gain substantially over the next releases but the core functionality (distributed file storage and sharing) is definitely worth it already.
  • Imagine what a mess it would be if every disk drive manufacturer had a different standard for storing data. It was bad enough when there were only Macs and Windows machines.

    Before we can get much farther with moving the desktop to the cloud there will have to be a standard so that whatever program I choose to use will know how to obtain the data for me to manipulate and then will know how to put it back where it was. That problem was solved on the desktop a long time ago.

    Boxnet is making a start, but I do not use any of the software with which they have worked out a deal. So, that is a solution only if you want to restrict your cloud computing to boxnet and their partners.

    And an api is not good enough unless they come together and agree on a standard so that the api can be used by any 'cloud' software I want to use.
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