14 DAY TRIAL // As part of the SkyDrive cloud-based storage service rebranding, Microsoft is also renaming SkyDrive Pro to OneDrive for Business, thus providing companies and their employees with their version of personal online storage product.
OneDrive for Business can be accessed not only from your browser, but also using dedicated apps that are available on Windows Phone, Windows 8. iOS, and Android platforms.
“Not only is OneDrive for Business 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,” Microsoft said in the official OneDrive for Business announcement today.
One of the good things about OneDrive for Business is that it’s going to be available for purchase as a standalone service, which means that any company can buy it without the need for registering for an Office 365 business plan.
At the same time, the service also comes with a brand new search box that allows users to look for the files stored in the cloud a lot easier than before.
“It’s smarter, with type-ahead features helping you find a document that might have been shared with you, or one that you tucked away several folders deep. You can also perform actions, like sharing these files, directly from the search results,” Redmond noted.
A promotional pricing released by Microsoft allows users to get OneDrive for Business for only $2.50 (€1.80), which means that the company is offering a 50 percent discount for a limited time.
What’s more, customers with Office with SA or Office 365 ProPlus can get OneDrive for Business for $1.50 (€1.10), again for a limited time.
OneDrive for Business will become broadly available on April 1, 2014, but the service is already available with most Office 365 and SharePoint Online plans at no extra price.
More features to OneDrive for Business will be added very soon, Microsoft promises, “including advanced auditing and reporting features, encryption at rest, data loss prevention (DLP), extensibility improvements, even higher storage limits, and more,” as the company itself revealed today.
Microsoft decided to rename SkyDrive to OneDrive following a trademark issue in the United Kingdom that forced the company to find a new name for its cloud-based storage service not only in England, but also across the world.
OneDrive is now part of Microsoft’s flagship products, including the Windows 8.1 operating system, Office, and the Outlook.com email platform.