Microsoft announced that Windows Live SkyDrive, launched at skydrive.live.com, will be available to all Malaysians starting today. This offers the 7.4 million-strong MSN and Windows Live community in Malaysia with a free, password-protected online storage and sharing space to access files and share with the people they choose.

Windows Live SkyDrive provides consumers with 5 GB of free online storage, which equates to approximately 1,000 songs, over 30,000 Microsoft Office documents of average size, or 30,000 digital photos at a resolution of 1200x1200. However, there is a 50MB limit on each file uploaded. 

“Windows Live SkyDrive is a great way for people to keep the information they need at their fingertips in order to access directly or to share with other people,” said Craig Law-Smith, Marketing Director, Microsoft Online Service Group, Southeast Asia.  “Our goal is to provide a service that people really love and value. Part of that is providing plenty of free storage to meet the majority of our customers’ needs. During the beta period, one of the main pieces of feedback we got was that people wished we provided more storage. We listened to them,” said Craig.

Windows Live SkyDrive has three folder options for customers to store files and information:  Personal, Shared, and Public.  The information in the Personal folder is secured with the customer's user name and password, while the Shared folders are secured with the user names and passwords of those the customer chooses to share with. Public folders are open to everyone on the web.

When customers choose to share files with other people in the Shared folder, they can set permissions for each person they share with, either allowing them to add and change files, or only to read the files. 

When sharing files in the Public area, customers have the option of allowing anyone on the internet to access the files, and, optionally, to select certain individuals who will be allowed to change or add new files to the publicly shared folders as well.

Windows Live SkyDrive also offers you three easy ways to keep updated on news files shared by your friends and family.

1. Add your friends and family to your Windows Live Messenger contact list. When they share new files on SkyDrive, a yellow "gleam" appears next to their name and their contact card shows the last few files they've uploaded.

2. Visit your Spaces home to see what your friends have been up to, including the latest files they've shared with you on SkyDrive.

3. Subscribe to RSS feeds for public folders. To do this, go to the public folder that you're interested in, and click on the orange RSS Feed icon at the top right of the page. Then, anytime that folder is updated, you'll be notified. 

In addition to Malaysia, today's announcements also extends the Windows Live SkyDrive offering to 23 other markets: Bulgaria, Costa Rica, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Indonesia, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Philippines, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Thailand, Ukraine and Venezuela. This brings the total availability to 64 countries.

Microsoft has also included updates to Windows live SkyDrive, most noticeable new features are the ability to add comments and captions to items, larger image previews and a new details view of files and folders.

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