Australian hosting company Ninefold has launched a public cloud storage service as a free public beta.

In the same manner as Amazon’s AWS S3 storage, a self-service account can be setup in minutes with a credit card, for data storage in the cloud for multiple applications and purposes.

Ninefold promises 9.2 cents per GB/month - which includes free support.

Peter James, Managing Director of Ninefold said, “A reliable, fast and highly scalable cloud storage infrastructure is now essential for many businesses to keep up with the exponential data growth expected within the next ten years. However, there has not been a true Australian alternative to Amazon AWS S3 until now.

“This kind of cloud storage differs from the SAN-based compute storage already offered by other providers in the same way an external hard drive differs from your computer’s C drive. It is pure, simple storage, without paying for additional resources you don’t need.”

Ninefold’s customers have open access to the cloud storage API. This enables existing third party-developed applications to leverage the Ninefold cloud storage service API to add new storage locations or features.

An example is the new NinefoldFox extension for Mozilla Firefox which integrates Ninefold services seamlessly into the web browser, allowing easy upload and download of files to your storage with a couple of clicks.

Ninefold’s new cloud storage feature is available in a free open period public beta until March 31st.