Unlimited Storage with Office 365 Subscriptions...
Generally I disagree with the overblown conclusions drawn around changes to online services. But this time I think the hype is dead on; Microsoft just won cloud storage. I would say "unless Google or Apple can rebut this" but they can't. Google already does the same thing with the paid version of Google Apps for business and I didn't even know it existed until today. Apple has no real competing solution.
Frankly, if MS markets this as well when people go to upgrade storage on OneDrive this could be a huge success. Not sure how many consumers use subscription based Office, but the market for people paying a subscription for online storage outside of the enterprise world is probably a bigger group. And, $6.99/month for unlimited storage and Office is a damn good deal. If you've got family and friends to share it with for $9.99/month you can get 5 installs of office and 5 account to share the unlimited storage with.
Very few storage providers can even think to offer unlimited in the first place, let alone at these prices. To get a free copy of Office in the mix is cake. I know Microsoft looks at it as buying Office and getting unlimited storage for free. But I think for the consumer market they should market it the other way around or each as equals.
I'm excited about these changes. But then, I was an Office 365 subscriber before this. We got it for my wife's business needs and got the $9.99 a month version. So we each have an Office install and soon to be unlimited storage. On top of that, I was also able to share the benefits with family.
I guess a big question is why? They just upgraded everyone to 1TB not long ago. I personally think that was a fishing exercise. 1TB of cloud storage is effectively unlimited for many people. But it would have allowed them to give a wide audience of users a huge amount of space and see what the average person used, rate of growth, etc... and use that to determine whether or not unlimited was feasible. I haven't seen any official comments to that end. But it certainly seems likely given the short timeframe between the 2 changes.
The other possible reason would be threat from a competing services or fears of an impending threat. But I doubt that is the case here. There are only a few companies with the data centers and infrastructure to do such a thing. In fact, beyond Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and Google... I can't really think of another entity that could deliver such a service on scale that would be competitive. And, out of those, Amazon doesn't have a user base that would be likely to use such a service, Google already has a competing option and Apple's market share, while growing, isn't really a concern.
Also, as a final note. While Google offers a competing service, it not only isn't as mature or widely adopted as Office, it also doesn't have the cross platform native apps. Office is a much more viable solution for those working across a range of products from a laptop to an Android phone to an iPad.
Frankly, if MS markets this as well when people go to upgrade storage on OneDrive this could be a huge success. Not sure how many consumers use subscription based Office, but the market for people paying a subscription for online storage outside of the enterprise world is probably a bigger group. And, $6.99/month for unlimited storage and Office is a damn good deal. If you've got family and friends to share it with for $9.99/month you can get 5 installs of office and 5 account to share the unlimited storage with.
Very few storage providers can even think to offer unlimited in the first place, let alone at these prices. To get a free copy of Office in the mix is cake. I know Microsoft looks at it as buying Office and getting unlimited storage for free. But I think for the consumer market they should market it the other way around or each as equals.
I'm excited about these changes. But then, I was an Office 365 subscriber before this. We got it for my wife's business needs and got the $9.99 a month version. So we each have an Office install and soon to be unlimited storage. On top of that, I was also able to share the benefits with family.
I guess a big question is why? They just upgraded everyone to 1TB not long ago. I personally think that was a fishing exercise. 1TB of cloud storage is effectively unlimited for many people. But it would have allowed them to give a wide audience of users a huge amount of space and see what the average person used, rate of growth, etc... and use that to determine whether or not unlimited was feasible. I haven't seen any official comments to that end. But it certainly seems likely given the short timeframe between the 2 changes.
The other possible reason would be threat from a competing services or fears of an impending threat. But I doubt that is the case here. There are only a few companies with the data centers and infrastructure to do such a thing. In fact, beyond Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and Google... I can't really think of another entity that could deliver such a service on scale that would be competitive. And, out of those, Amazon doesn't have a user base that would be likely to use such a service, Google already has a competing option and Apple's market share, while growing, isn't really a concern.
Also, as a final note. While Google offers a competing service, it not only isn't as mature or widely adopted as Office, it also doesn't have the cross platform native apps. Office is a much more viable solution for those working across a range of products from a laptop to an Android phone to an iPad.
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