What are you Getting from Microsoft’s Cloud Storage?

Microsoft announced just over a year ago that all Office 365 subscribers would have access to unlimited cloud storage, however the company is now taking that offer away. Microsoft now says subscribers to Office 365 Personal, Home and University will get cloud storage of a maximum capacity of 1TB instead of the limitless amount they were previously promised.

Since we started to roll out unlimited cloud storage to Office 365 consumer subscribers, a small number of users backed up numerous PCs and stored entire movie collections and DVR recordings, explains Microsoft justifying its decision to reduce the unlimited cloud storage offer. In some instances, this exceeded 75 TB per user or 14,000 times the average.

What is going to happen with Microsoft Office 365

What is going to happen? Well Microsoft say that any Office 365 subscriber who have used up more than 1TB of OneDrive storage will be notified of the change and be allowed to keep their unlimited storage for a year until they find a place to store all their excess data.

As if this was not bad enough, Microsoft is making its OneDrive offers worse in other ways as well. Here are other changes the company says it’s making:

100 GB and 200 GB paid plans are going away as an option for new users and will be replaced with a 50 GB plan for $1.99 per month in early 2016.

Free OneDrive storage will decrease from 15 GB to 5 GB for all users, current and new. The 15 GB camera roll storage bonus will also be discontinued. These changes will start rolling out in early 2016.

Again, Microsoft says that people whose free storage exceeds 5GB right now will be given a year before they’re forced to slim down but this still seems like a strange and tone deaf way to go about things. After all, if the problem were really about managing the “data hogs” that are abusing their unlimited storage, why reduce the free storage tier from 15GB to just 5GB

Similarly, it’s weird that Microsoft would be reducing choices for users by cutting out 100GB and 200GB plans when the market for cloud storage is so insanely competitive right now. Does Microsoft really think OneDrive users won’t happily switch to other providers if they don’t like what is being offered?

Downsides of Cloud Storage

What this article does demonstrate is one of the downsides of using another company to provide your cloud resource. Another little spoken about issue is which governmental law will take president over what is in effect your data, either now or in the future. Currently there is a battle in the US trying to give US law governance over data held by US companies no matter where in the world they are stored. IE the likes of Microsoft, Apple and Google are embroiled in this. The net effect is that US law will take presidents over European law which is far stronger on personal privacy.

Our view on cloud storage is all dependent on what the client needs are. Cloud storage is not a panacea that solves all problems. It is in effect rented access to a sever somewhere in the world. People forget that you can also create your own private cloud if you so choose, and ultimately you control your data and which law governs it by choosing to host it in whichever land you like.

The one thing cloud is good for is storage at a very low cost. However you must read the terms and conditions as some provides do suggest that they may own the Intellectual Property rights to it. Most firms have data that is confidential to their business. Some of it by design some of it by knowing just who is the right person to talk to for a type of business. All very important data, as a client put it “it’s my crown jewels”.

For more information and unbiased help on your choice of cloud solutions come and talk to us. We will help and advice you what is best for you and your business.