In the last Apple event we were introduced to what looked like a cloud storage, DropBox like product called the ‘iCloud Drive‘ which not only works like DropBox, OneDrive, Copy and other cloud storage options but also comes with 5GB of free storage space but also with a killer OneDrive like feature to sync documents and edit them online within the browser which many cloud storage drives lack.
Microsoft wants to go big with Cloud Storage to make sure their ecosystem which not only includes their Windows Operating System for desktop and mobile but also now is a part of the new Android powered Nokia X series which come with all the Microsoft products and services deeply integrated. Unlike other Android devices which has a Google Account to sync with, Nokia’s new X series devices have Android but everything from setup to back up to default storage has Outlook and OneDrive built into it.
With that being the future of Microsoft, OneDrive with 7GB of free storage space sounds low and not very appealing to anyone as most does provide similar free storage accounts or in many cases a lot more. Given, not every cloud storage service provides all the features Microsoft’s OneDrive ( formerly known ‘SkyDrive’ ) but for more free storage you might want to consider other available options. ( Dropbox and Copy more than double the free storage space ).
To make OneDrive more appealing, Microsoft has doubled the free storage from 7GB to 15GB and for the Office 365 customers will now come with 1TB of OneDrive space which makes paying for the Office 365 subscription easily the most cost-effective cloud storage service with the whole lot of features it comes with. The Office 365 personal plan costs $6.99 per month and the Office 365 business plan costs $9.99 per month.
Here are 3 things Microsoft Announced in regards to OneDrive storage.
1. OneDrive will come with 15GB free cloud storage : Microsoft observed that 3 out of 4 people have less than 15GB of files ( important documents, photos, videos ) stored on their PC to sync to cloud storage. Giving 15GB seemed logical to them as it would cover 90% of users’ data.
2. All Office 365 plans ( Personal & Business ) will come with 1TB of OneDrive Storage : All Office 365 subscribers will be upgraded to 1TB of OneDrive storage. Now don’t forget Office 365 not just includes OneDrive but all the Office Apps which can be called the productivity suite. All the apps and data can be accessed on any laptop ,smartphone, tablet and even through the web-browser with the web office Apps OneDrive comes with. Office 365 ProPlus for businesses were already upgraded from 25GB to 1TB per user in earlier this year.
Office 365 Home is $9.99/month ( up to 5 people )
Office 365 Personal is $6.99/month
Office 365 for University is $79.99/4yr
3. All the extra storage ( if required ) prices are dropped by over 70% : If and when you require to extend your OneDrive storage, the plans for future upgrade has drastically gone down too.
100GB now costs $1.99/month ( previously $7.49)
200GB now costs $3.99/month ( previously $11.49)
The direct competitor to Microsoft’s OneDrive is the Google Drive and iCloud Drive ( yet to be released ). They are the only true competitors mainly because they are only reliable cloud storage services which come with similar features of Productivity Apps. Since iCloud Drive is yet to be successfully released, Google Drive always had a price advantage over OneDrive but with this announced OneDrive is matching with their price. In some cases even gives a slight edge given the value of Office Applications is much higher than the not-so-perfect Google Drive Apps.
Will this change how people use OneDrive? Maybe, if people adapt and start using OneDrive as a separate cloud storage App than an Outlook companion. But with Google’s Gmail integration with many of the Google Drive features and ease of access, its hard to make people switch from Google Drive. Its a big market and majority of it is dominated by cloud storage services like DropBox and Copy which mainly help you dump all your data at one place and access it anywhere within your favourite app. This divided market is what OneDrive, Google Drive and iCloud Drive should concentrate on. And this is where Google and Apple has an edge over Microsoft. For any new customer to start using Android and iPhone and not realise they have actually started using Google Drive and iCloud Drive respectively is what makes the difference when it comes to data storage and access. Microsoft does have their Windows Phones and Nokia X to pull the mobile storage market too but the number is low and adoption rate and growth is really slow.
Source : The OneDrive Blog