Just a day after Microsoft announced and made available its SkyDrive application for Windows and OS X, along with the much anticipated paid subscription for extra storage on SkyDrive, Google came out gunning with its own cloud service, dubbed Google Drive. For years, we've been hearing rumors about Google Drive, but the company kept the product tightly under wraps, waiting for the right time to unleash it upon the world of tech enthusiasts.

Google is offering 5GB free storage and additional storage will require a subscription. The company plans to offer up to 16TB of online storage, which is more than what competitors are offering at the moment. DropBox, the most well known Cloud Storage service, offers only 100GB as the maximum. Same for SkyDrive, which launched its own paid service on Monday.

Sundar Pichai, senior vice president of Google Chrome and apps, had this to say. "Today, we're introducing Google Drive - a central place where you can create, share, collaborate and keep all of your stuff."

"Whether you're working with a friend on a joint research project, planning a wedding with your fiancé or tracking a budget with roommates, you can do it in Drive."

Google will have to differentiate its product from competitors if it wants to be successful. Simply copying what others have done won't be enough to sway users to come onboard the Google Drive choo-choo train. If the company can bring its search expertise into play here, then Google Drive could be on the verge of becoming another top product for the big G. However, with its cheaper pricing, which begins at $2.49 per month for additional 25GB of storage, while the maximum sits at 100GB for only $4.99 per month, Google probably won't have to do much to get users to make the switch.

We expect Google to offer the 16TB option for the enterprise, which of course won't be cheap. 16TB will cost $800 a month and 1TB will cost $50 a month.

The only competitor that is expected to feel the heat of Google Drive entrance into the space is DropBox. Currently, DropBox gets its storage from Amazon, hence the higher subscription fee when compared to Microsoft SkyDrive and Google Drive. Dropbox offers 2GB for free, 50GB for $9.99 a month and 100GB for $19.99 a month.

Not surprisingly, the arrival of Google Drive has forced DropBox to upgrade its service. Now users can share their files with others without having them to sign up to DropBox, something SkyDrive has been doing for quite some time.

Check out the cool video on Google Drive below.

(reported by Vamien McKalin, edited by Dave Clark)