Microsoft seems to be bullish once again with its cloud offering. This time around the company has taken a potshot at its competitors with the new OneDrive offer. Yes, Microsoft has decided to go at loggerheads with its competitors like Google Drive, Box and Dropbox with a directly competing offer.
Free OneDrive switch offer
Starting from Feb 6 Microsoft will be giving away the OneDrive for business free for organizations having 500 or more users. The validity of the offer is matched with the remaining contract validity of Google, Box or Dropbox. The fine print requires the users to be new OneDrive for Business customers. That apart the offer will be valid until June 30.
Microsoft will further allow the organizations to use OneDrive for Business freely for up to three years or match it with the remaining term of the contract with its competitors. That being said users will be getting the standalone OneDrive for Business while the Office 365 needs to be purchased separately.
Enterprise Agreement/Enterprise Agreement Subscription (EA/EAS), will receive a free trial for the remaining term of their Box, Dropbox, or Google contract. Customers with EA/EAS can add the Microsoft product to their EA/EAS at no charge unless and until the remaining term of the Box, Dropbox, or Google contract is less than the term of the EA/EAS, at which point the cost of the Microsoft product will be pro-rated over the term of the EA/EAS
Microsoft claims that there are currently more than 350,000 organizations that are using OneDrive. The company is pushing its product and is advertising the cost-effectiveness, personalized search, security and the deep integration with the other Microsoft products including Office 365. However, the company will continue working on Box to enable storage, and content-management service on Azure and the same hold good for Dropbox integration as well.
