Due to the recent lawsuit against using the name ‘SkyDrive’, Microsoft Corporation had to rename its service. However, the tech giant has rather re-launched its cloud storage with a new name and added features. From now on, it will be called as ‘OneDrive’ with rest of the branding to be pretty same as before. So now, while you log in to SkyDrive, you will automatically be redirected to OneDrive. Let us see when did it start and what’s new.
The Lawsuit
In June 2013, a British television broadcaster BSkyB filed a lawsuit against Microsoft for using an already trademarked name ‘Sky’ within its service name. In the following month, both the companies issued a joint press release announcing that the Microsoft’s service will be renamed to something else. However, the plaintiff allowed Microsoft to continue with the name until an orderly transition to a new brand is completed.
The New Brand
Almost seven months after the settlement between both the companies, Microsoft came up with an announcement that its cloud storage services, which were named that time as ‘SkyDrive and SkyDrive Pro’, will be rebranded to ‘OneDrive and OneDrive for Business’. Since then, all Microsoft has taken is just a few weeks to complete its transition to the newly decided brand name. Although the name is wholly revamped, other characteristics like brand logo and color combinations remain the same. Carrying the entire process at a time of outgoing CEO would have certainly been convoluted.
Why OneDrive
You must be thinking about the sense behind the newly set name, OneDrive. Why it is to be called OneDrive and not Microsoft Drive or WinDrive (Windows Drive)? The authorities have given sufficient rationale for it being OneDrive. The name communicates the value that cloud storage provider wants to deliver. Although people love to have multiple devices at a time or change their computing devices quite often, they would definitely want their important stuff like office docs, photos, videos, and other data retrievable from a single place. OneDrive is the place where you can store files from your PC, laptop, smartphone and/or tablet and recover it from anywhere you want.
What’s New?
Microsoft has not just transformed the name of its cloud storage service, but is also providing some added features and promotions. The users can now share videos just like they did photos. Moreover, it will also provide Android users with automatic photo backup service. The cloud storage service has reborn with some exciting new promotions as well. The users who have signed up to the service before April 2012 are allowed for a limited time offer of 25 GB of free storage upgrade.
It is hard to survive with a whole new strategy in competition with highly-acclaimed service providers like iCloud, Dropbox, Amazon Web Services, and Google Drive. However, Microsoft has managed it well to sustain its user count of over 250 million. It seems that the appointment of a cloud guy on the prime executive position is leading to some kind of preservation.
