Yahoo Briefcase To Slam ShutYahoo Briefcase To Slam Shut

Yahoo Briefcase will close at the end of March.

The company has posted a message on the Briefcase site notifying users that they must download or delete their files by March 30 or Yahoo will delete the files for them. The service allowed users to store, access, and share digital files from anywhere, as long as they had an Internet connection.

The free online storage service offered a 30-MB capacity for nearly 10 years. That's not enough capacity for today's heavy Internet users who swap multimedia files much larger than the 5-MB files that can be uploaded to Yahoo Briefcase.

The closure comes as new Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz attempts to turn the company around by improving upon its best assets.

Yahoo competitor Microsoft offers online file storage through Live Mesh. Live Mesh is in beta testing and offers 5 GB of free storage space, as well as synchronization across a variety of devices.

Google is rumored to be coming out with storage space through GDrive, although the details are sketchy. The company hasn't announced the service and it's unclear how much capacity users will have.

A JavaScript file for the company's free software package, Google Pack, contains a reference to GDrive as a place for "reliable storage for all of your files, including photos, music, and documents." It states that users will be able to access those files from computers and mobile devices.

Yahoo provides unlimited free storage through its e-mail services and through its free photo and video sharing Web site, Flickr.