Microsoft OneDrive users may be breaking up with OneDrive for a new fling with Dropbox. This could be the result of the OneDrive storage reduction request made by Microsoft to its users. Those who fail to heed the cloud storage warnings could be faced with losing files and access to their accounts. This is good news for Dropbox since deleting cloud storage for many users is absolutely not an option. This may have big profit implications as well, turning more consumers away from Microsoft products and services. This could have big bottom-line woes for the company since their services can now be found at their competitor’s doorsteps.
The OneDrive Scale Back
They are not asking users to delete a few emails or photo albums. This is a massive scale back of data that users will need to do. In fact, Microsoft wants users to go from the initial 15GB to a mere 5GB. This is a 67% loss. Not to mention, users will need to make the changes rather fast to meet the July 27 deadline. The scale back will also result in doing away with the 15GB “camera roll” incentive. This will essentially drop user storage from 30GB to 5GB as well. This may allow Dropbox to step in and swoop away a lot of new users for their service. They will surely see an influx of users by the end of July.
The Office 365 Reductions Good for Dropbox
Office 365 users will also have storage woes in the new reduction plan. The subscriptions for Personal and Home plans are $70 and $100 respectively, but will be limited to 1TB per user. The Personal plan does allow five users, which could make the service still viable. Another possible reason Dropbox may be a better route for users to go.
Microsoft Backpedals Over Handling
After their stern announcement of storage decreases, the company began backpedaling in order to retain users. They sent a formal apology out and offered an olive branch to those who requested the “camera roll” bonus with an additional 10GB of storage. Users are still not pleased by the decrease in storage and possibility of losing files. However, Microsoft stands to make more than $1 billion in new annual revenue by convincing just 10% of users to pay for their lowest priced plans. What will consumers use, OneDrive or Dropbox?
