>
Google Apps has a much better storage story (Google Drive vs. WebDAV-based storage)I've been a Dropbox user even before switching off Google Apps, because Dropbox has a much better client and compared to alternatives, storage for them is not just a complementary to something else, so for example they support Linux as well. Which is very important for a multi-platform guy such as myself. Dropbox is also integrated with Microsoft's Office Online, with Gmail (by means of a Chrome extension) and with Fastmail's web interface. So from Fastmail's web interface you can attach files straight from Dropbox. Plenty of apps have integration with Dropbox actually, like for example 1Password. Dropbox is also the suggested alternative to iCloud by Apple.
And that's not the only option. If you're a power user interested in security, there's also SpiderOak. It's a bit more pricey, but that's because they are doing encryption and so cannot take advantage of duplicate files and other gimmicks like that. And it's worth it for people worrying about the privacy of their data.
> 1TB for $4 per month
The pricing you're talking about is about the Vault option and is $5 per user per month and not $4. And the big problem is that's misleading. That's $5 per month per user and is applied for all users in your Google Apps account, whether they need it or not. My wife for example certainly does not need 1 TB and for small businesses that can be very problematic, as you can easily pay an extra $100 per month.
In other words, I see no reason to encourage a monoculture on the basis of tighter integration or complementary pricing that's misleading. We've been experiencing this strategy time and time again in the past from companies like Microsoft. You'd think we should have learned by now. In fact such marketing strategies are exemplified in books such as "Predictably Irrational" by Dan Ariely. That was an interesting read if you're interested.
And it never ends up well, either for consumers or for the industry at large. And you've got good options available that I think are better than Google Drive.
> an office suite with collaborative editing
But nobody stops you from continuing to use Google's Docs, in combination with Fastmail and Dropbox or whatever. I've done that, it's not bad and should not be a reason to keep using Gmail. Big companies like Google, Microsoft or Apple want you to get from them everything but the kitchen sink, because that's how they achieve lock-in, that's how they can use their brand muscle to make you buy shit you don't need or stick to inferior options. You shouldn't forget that Gmail is about email and if Gmail no longer does email well for you, then complementaries like Google Drive or Google Docs won't make it magically work better at email.
But btw, did you know that Microsoft's Office Online can edit and save files as ODF, the standard document format and Google Docs does not support ODF? In fact Google Docs doesn't support editing any of the common formats, as they require conversion in their own format in order to edit those documents, leading to a form of lock-in that Microsoft has only dreamt of.