Yahoo announces closure of Briefcase

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Yahoo!'s^{NASDAQ: YHOO} Briefcase service is to be closed after ten years.

The directory-cum-internet portal's Briefcase, which offers 30mb of online storage of files up to 5mb, is to be shut down on March 30. Data not retrieved before then will be deleted.

Usage of the service has declined in recent years and has been superseded by other companies' offers. Google has plans for a GDrive service, whilst Microsoft's Live Mesh is now in beta. Yahoo! Mail now has unlimited storage, as do paid accounts with the Yahoo!-owned photo- and video-sharing site Flickr. A spokesperson for Yahoo! said that "[d]iscontinuing the service will allow us to focus our efforts on more broadly used products".

Yahoo has been losing market value since Microsoft's deal to buy the company fell through in May 2008 and the company has reduced staff. Yahoo! still dominates the market for display adverts but this market is shrinking against targeted search adverts, where Google dominates.

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Sources

Tameka Kee. "paidContent.org - A Bumpy Road Ahead For Yahoo Search?" — The Washington Post, February 2, 2009
Michael Learmonth. "Google Closes in on Yahoo's Leadership in Display Advertising" — Advertising Age, February 2, 2009
PC World. "Yahoo's Briefcase to Close March 30" — Yahoo! Tech, January 30, 2009
Bloomberg News. "Shutting Briefcase" — The Mercury News, January 30, 2009

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