Dropbox chief executive Drew Houston has called out the iCloud’s walled garden as bad for business.

According to Houston, its poor form to have a cloud storage solution that only works for one type of hardware maker. He specifically questions why an end user would want to use a cloud platform that’s proprietary.

“There will never be an engineer in the Apple cafeteria who’s like, hey I made the Android version of iCloud,” Houston said, according to MacWorld.

Houston goes on to say that it might not be in a hardware maker’s best interest to operate a cloud storage offering. He believes that the work involved in protecting and managing a cloud storage operation might be too much for some firms.

A possible solution for the issue, according to Houston, may be partnering up with cloud operators to bring storage apps baked into devices. He specifically points to a recent deal Dropbox signed with Samsung to have Dropbox’s app pre-installed on all Samsung devices.

On one hand, Houston has a point. Being unable to access files stored in the iCloud on a Surface Tablet could be problematic. However, with so many companies, and people, living an i-only life it’s probably safe to assume the issue is a moot point in a variety of cases.

More importantly, if you’re Apple, you’re just better off having a consumer using only your devices and services. If a consumer has already bought into your whole ecosystem than you really don’t have to worry about them moving somewhere else.

05 Mar 2013