Microsoft’s newly rebranded OneDrive from the old SkyDrive cloud storage platform came with new features and the company threw in a few promotions during its launch.
Following a British court ruling that found Microsoft in violation of the British Sky Broadcasting group trademark, Microsoft consented to let go of SkyDrive as the name for its cloud storage platform in July. The OneDrive brand was shared with the public in January and the official rebranding took place early this February.
The new brand comes with a new feature that enables the sharing of videos and the Android version of it getting an automated photo back up.
OneDrive is Microsoft’s competition for cloud storage services like Google Drive from Google, DropBox, and iCloud from Apple. The stiff competition has not stopped the growth of the brands popularity as users of the service have reached up to 250 M. OneDrive is an integral part of Microsoft’s ‘One Microsoft’ strategy and with the fresh attention it is getting because of the rebranding, the cloud storage service may be in for some more growth.
The promotions that Microsoft has come up with might actually do them some good in attracting new users. Everyone gets 7 GB free storage space and an additional 3 GB for mobile phone owners using its photo back up feature. Referring a friend to the service will get you 500 MB for every new invite to a 5GB maximum.
Microsoft reassured old users of the continuity of the product, mentioning that existing storage would have no impact except the incorporation of the new built-in-video trans-coding feature which enables video storage and adjustment of video resolution to match the viewer’s display.
Even with its growing brand success, Microsoft seems know that there still exists a challenge when it comes to cross platform usage of the services. They have tried balancing the accessibility of the service on competing devices without affecting the demand of their devices.
The cloud storage service, for example, is not available on the iPad and Android tablet and this is Microsoft’s strategy of avoiding an effect on the demand for its windows tablet. While the companies deal with the balancing act, we are looking forward to any new products and enhancements coming our way.
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