Microsoft rebrands SkyDrive as OneDrive, offers free extra storage in celebration
It’s official: Microsoft has finally rebranded SkyDrive as OneDrive, following a lawsuit in the United Kingdom that found Microsoft guilty of infringing upon British Sky Broadcasting’s “Sky” moniker. The UK-based company allowed Microsoft to use the SkyDrive brand until it could finish an “orderly” transition, which it did today.
Just like SkyDrive, OneDrive offers 7GB of storage for every owner of a Live account – which, incidentally, is also free. Users who complete the OneDrive tutorial can receive up to 8GB of extra storage: 3GB for allowing OneDrive to automatically back up your phone’s camera roll, and 500MB for each of up to 10 friends you refer to the service. In total, you could land yourself 15GB of free storage without paying a single penny. Of course, there are paid options if you find the need to store more stuff in the cloud: 50GB for $25, 100GB for $50, and 200GB for $100.
Microsoft also announced a few launch day features for the rebranded service. OneDrive now includes a real-time collaborative document editor (something SkyDrive desperately needed to compete with Google Drive), as well as a revamped video transcoding system that promises faster load times across all devices. The OneDrive Android app also received an update that gives users the option to enable automatic camera backups.
It will take users a while to grow accustomed to the new OneDrive name, but in the end, it might fare better for Microsoft than SkyDrive ever could. The company has already started using the OneDrive brand as a symbol for unity across all devices – that no matter where you are, no matter the device, you will be able to access your one drive on the internet.
Clever marketing, to be sure – I just hope Microsoft can capitalize on it.
[Microsoft | Pocket-lint | OneDrive]
