Microsoft rebrands SkyDrive Pro as OneDrive for Business [#SPC14]

In a bid to get more competitive in the online space, Microsoft announced at its annual SharePoint conference that SkyDrive Pro will now be souped up as OneDrive for Business, a personal online storage for a company’s employees.

“It’s the place where people can store, sync, and share their work files across multiple devices with ease and security,” says Julia White is the General Manager of technical product management for Office 365.

“With OneDrive for Business you can collaborate with others in real-time right from within Office and edit documents from virtually anywhere via a web browser in real-time using Office Online.”

The idea is to be able to access your files from different devices easily “with native OneDrive for Business and Office Mobile apps,” kinda like DropBox or Box.

The company touts the newish services as a simple and intuitive file sync and storage solution for employees.

“It’s a trusted service that provides enterprise-grade content management, compliance, and administrative controls, and it is financially backed by the industry-leading Office 365 Service Level Agreement,” says White.

White notes however that this is not just a rebrand of SkyDrive Pro — there are some key differences and changes that the company has made to the service:

• OneDrive for Business will be available for purchase as a standalone service. It’s also still available as part of many Office 365 for business plans, but the new standalone plan makes it easy to get started using cloud storage and sharing.
• It’s now easier to access, find, and manage your work files because of new user experience enhancements to OneDrive for Business.
• On-premises SharePoint customers can now configure OneDrive for Business more easily—with just a few clicks—with Service Pack 1 on-premises SharePoint customers to configure OneDrive for Business with just a few clicks with Service Pack 1.

“Over the past year we delivered a steady stream of new features and capabilities to OneDrive for Business, including increased file sizes, higher storage limits, mobile apps (Office Mobile for iPhone and Android, and native OneDrive for Business app for iOS), and improved user experiences like the Shared with Me view,” says White.

Currently OneDrive for Business is bundled with Office 365 plans and SharePoint Online plans. However, come 1 April 2014, OneDrive for Business with Office Online will also be available as a standalone service.