Microsoft has now officially put the name SkyDrive to rest and now calls its cloud storage service OneDrive, TechCrunch reported.
Beginning today, the SkyDrive website, mobile and desktop apps will now go by the name OneDrive. According to a January 27, 2014 TechCrunch report, the name change was an example of the tech firm yielding the previous trademark to a British broadcaster. That report said, "As Microsoft helpfully points to in its blog post, the real reason behind the rebrand is a dispute with European broadcaster BSkyB, which claimed the name "SkyDrive" infringed on its own trademark. The company, one of the largest pay-TV providers in Europe, offers online streaming, mobile apps, and even had its own online storage service called "Sky Store & Share" from 2008-2011."
Together with the rebranding, Microsoft also rolled out a new referral program which reminds users of the referral system put in place by startup Dropbox. Under the OneDrive program, a user is awarded 500MB of free storage if their friend registers to the program through the link sent to them by the user. A maximum of 5GB can be won if a user is able to get 10 friends to sign up with OneDrive. Users may also obtain as much as 3GB of free space of they allow automatic photo uploads on their Windows, Android or iOS phones, the report said.
All in all, users of OneDrive have a chance of getting as much as 8GB in added storage. The photo backup feature was not available in the Android app before OneDrive officially launched. With today's update, however, the feature has been made available to Android phones too, the report said.
The cost of consumer cloud storage has become more affordable large technology firms also offer these services. If Microsoft has OneDrive, Google Drive is the offering of search giant Google while iCloud is Apple's counterpart. Better apps, improved features and perhaps their marketing approach will mark them better than their rivals in the space, the report said.
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