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Last month, Microsoft announced a number of unpopular changes to its deject storage service, OneDrive: The unlimited storage plan offered to Office 365 Home, Personal, and University customers was reduced to 1TB; the 100GB and 200GB plans were eliminated, to be replaced by a 50GB plan; the gratis storage plan was slashed from 15GB downward to 5GB; and the visitor declared it would no longer offer a 15GB bonus to customers who synched their photographic camera rolls with OneDrive servers.

Customers were anything just happy about these changes, and Microsoft appears to take gotten the bulletin, at to the lowest degree in part. A Microsoft spokesperson has apologized for the way the previous alter was communicated, stating:

"We realize the announcement came across as blaming customers for using our product. For this, we are truly sorry and would like to repent to the customs. While we are not changing our overall plans, nosotros'd like to analyze what nosotros are doing for customers impacted past the changes and share a new offer which we hope will go a long way in making the state of affairs improve for our biggest fans."

Beginning, the 1TB limit on the erstwhile unlimited accounts will all the same use, though users with more than 1TB of storage online will have a 12-month grace period to migrate it to different services or upgrade their plans. Customers not happy about this tin can ask for a total refund on the service. Free accounts, similarly, are nonetheless being trimmed to 5GB.

OneDrive

Microsoft is making two changes to its previous strategy. One, existing OneDrive customers now have the option to opt-in and keep their previous 15GB of storage + 15GB camera roll (if previously applicable). Current users can opt into this programme starting now and running until the end of Jan. Ii, existing free users with more than than 5GB of information on OneDrive will receive a costless year of Role 365 Personal. Microsoft claims it will email customers about this offer early on next year.

Information technology's interesting to note the difference betwixt these two approaches. If you desire to keep your 15GB to 30GB storage locker, y'all accept to opt into doing and so — which means the vast majority of people volition never notice the offer. Microsoft is certainly aware of this. When it comes to giving abroad Office 365 Personal, even so, the company is going to be proactive and reach out to users to tell them the offering is on the tabular array. This offer will also come with the 1TB of online storage normally provided.

Equally a long-run strategy, this makes perfect sense, since getting more people to utilise Office 365 may mean more long-term revenue for the company. Information technology's telling, nonetheless, that Microsoft would rather give abroad a free year of a product it sells for $70 (and up to 1TB of storage) than provide free OneDrive users with an actress 10GB of data apiece.

Put differently: If Backblaze tin run an unabridged business organization on providing really unlimited storage to users for just $5 per month, how much cash tin Microsoft possibly be saving past cutting free users to 5GB? If you lot previously used between v-15GB of storage on OneDrive, how many people are going to pay $70 per year for the privilege of i-10GB of additional cloud storage per month?