It's a similar service to Dropbox.
It is no more a clone than Gmail is to Windows Live hotmail. Or In-N-Out Burger to Macdonalds. It's good competition that benefits the consumer over time. One offering strives to do better than the other to win your business. We all get a better set of services to choose from.
If someone already spends their time in Google services like Docs and gmail, this is a great service for security, sharing, and ease of use.
I've been waiting for it for a long time. I'm already using 27 gigs of my 100 gig plan. Logging into my Google Apps mail makes me one click away from my files.
Functionally, it operates just like Dropbox but has developers lining up to build apps for it. Several file apps already exist that will open and display files that normally require expensive editing software to read.
It won't be long before you can share an after effects production file with your client and all he'll need is a free chrome app to preview it over the internet.
This is already possible with all kinds of file formats using a Drive App https://chrome.google.com
