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back to article LaCie to shutter Wuala cloud storage service, data deleted Nov 15

External disk and small NAS vendor LaCie will close its Wuala cloud storage service. Wuala launched in 2008 under the auspices of a company called Caleido that in 2009 merged with LaCie. In the years since, LaCie has included wuala's software with many of its products to smooth the path from its devices to the cloud. That …

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  1. Roq D. Kasba

    Hardware company non-core service

    Hardly a shocker - every time the bulk of sheer hardware companies try to do software (eg backup utilities that come with drives, browsers on 'Smart' TV's) it's crufty, and gets abandoned/goes unpatched a few years later. You can never rely on it.

    Similarly, using a non-core service like this is going to get the chop at some point - want cloud? Go to a company that already has everything in place and has bet the farm on it without exposing their core business - Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Rackspace. Want a smart TV? Better to get a dumb one and a media box of some flavour, etc.

    3 0 Reply
    1. Charlie Clark Silver badge
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      Thumb Up

      Re: Hardware company non-core service

      Also, the lack of integration in the file system added an additional hurdle to adoption. Using Java for the client also meant lots of updates.

      2 0 Reply
      1. esque
        Reply Icon

        Re: Hardware company non-core service

        Can you specify what OS you are using and what exactly you expect/want?

        Under WIndows my Wuala storage was mapped as a virtual drive.

        1 0 Reply
  2. Phuq Witt
    Mushroom

    See There!

    Every time I see "voilà" spelt as "wuala" I want to punch someone (and I'm not even French). To see an actual French company collaborating in such crimes against humanity just makes it worse. So I'm glad to see it fail.

    Now if all the companies in the world with the word "solutions" in their name would care to follow them to the wall, justice will have been served.

    (... and don't get me started on that bloody word "arse-sum"!)

    6 0 Reply
    1. Wensleydale Cheese
      Reply Icon

      Re: See There!

      "Every time I see "voilà" spelt as "wuala" I want to punch someone" (and I'm not even French)

      Wuala came out of a company based in Zurich. It's a decent approximation (and even mildly funny) if you pronounce it the German way, but without that clue, it was well dodgy.

      Its use of Java was the show stopper for me, and no doubt many others. When I got the chance to ditch Java and its incessant security patches, Wuala wasn't in the picture any more.

      3 0 Reply
      1. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: See There!

        I've been using MyDrive for ages. It's simple, works and I have an audit record of who accesses what, so when Wuala came along there was really no incentive to change..

        0 0 Reply
      2. Roq D. Kasba
        Reply Icon

        Re: See There!

        I have exactly one use for Java, and it is not through choice that I use Movie Magic Budgeting. The software does do some things fairly well, but the Java implementation is horrible, nothing copies/pastes properly, etc. Rewritten as a native app I might even like it as opposed to be desperate to find a decent competitor...

        1 0 Reply
  3. Domquark

    First Victim?

    So is Wuala the first "big" victim of the new EDPR law? Wuala's business model relied on online sales, with very little interaction between it's staff and customers - EDPR forces [businesses] into much greater integration between the two. This would mean that Wuala would have to take on a LOT more staff - something Seagate/LaCie probably didn't want to pay for.

    0 0 Reply
    1. TReko
      Reply Icon
      Holmes

      Re: First Victim?

      Probably not. If you want to put on a tin-foil hat then perhaps they received a security letter and chose to shut down rather than disclosing user data?

      I guess it is also hard to compete with free offerings from Google, MS and DropBox. Adding end-to-end encryption is pretty easy with all these services, just by using an encryption tool like TrueCrypt http://truecrypt.org for DropBox or SyncDocs http://syncdocs.com for Google Drive. Online (cloud) storage has become a loss leader for these big companies.

      0 0 Reply
      1. Domquark
        Reply Icon

        Re: First Victim?

        No, no tin-foil hat!

        Article 30 of the new EDPR states that any company storing data in the cloud will have to [in conjunction with the cloud provider] perform risk assessments on any [cloud] stored data. So both your company AND the cloud provider will have to do this on your companies data.

        This can only significantly increase the workload (and therefore cost) on both the client and the storage provider. I doubt that people like Google, MS and Dropbox will offer free or at least very cheap storage to businesses when they have to perform risk assessments on everything that a [business] client stores on their system. If they do, that "loss leader" is about to become a huge loss leader, taking into consideration all the extra man hours necessary. Encryption is irrelevant as far as EDPR is concerned, as the Article 30 requirement is there regardless of encryption.

        I'm not saying you are wrong - I'm just suggesting that with EDPR on the horizon this may be the first of many storage providers who will not have the funds or the manpower to be able to fulfil the upcoming legal requirements for business customers storing data in the cloud.

        0 0 Reply
  4. volkeroboda

    Secure the cloud

    Wuala has started to secure the cloud. We share Wuala’s belief that storing and sharing files securely should not be the privilege of techies, Many systems today provide users with access to their data, but at a loss of control. To maintain full control of data a system must be completely secure from start to finish.

    I predict that as time progresses the pressure to provide optimal data security in this form will increase. This can be seen in the growing concern about where and how data is stored in view of the increasing power of governments and other organizations to collect and evaluate massive amounts of data. This means that any system that is not designed to address the extensive data protection needs of its end-users, will fail. There is a need in the market for a secure service like Wuala. I found TeamDrive as an very secure alternative to Wuala. TeamDrive was designed and implemented with these fundamental security requirements in mind. Therefore TeamDrive is confident that it will benefit from the shift in security consciousness as users search for better ways to store and share their data.

    0 0 Reply
  5. Disko
    Coat

    It's just...

    A new way for LaCie to lose your data.

    1 0 Reply

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