[BLOG] Microsoft officially begins rebranding of SkyDrive to OneDrive

[CrimsonShade]

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After a trademark dispute with broadcaster and British pay-TV Provider BSkyB - which owns the "Sky" trademark for TV services in the UK - Microsoft announced in January it would re-brand its cloud storage service, SkyDrive, to the new name OneDrive in order to erase confusion. However, despite this announcement, the name "SkyDrive" has remained top of most of the service's access points - until now.



It appears Microsoft are finally acting on their claim; and starting today, all SkyDrive services are gradually being updated. So far, the website, mobile and desktop apps have all been updated to use the new OneDrive branding. Ironically, Windows 8 and 8.1 itself, as well as the recent Office Releases - which both incorporate the service for online file storage and retrieval - have yet to be updated and continue to refer to the service as "SkyDrive", but we're sure this will be corrected soon enough.



With the rebranding, Microsoft have apparently also seen fit to launch a new referral system to reward users for referring others to OneDrive, which echoes a similar system by another popular cloud storage platform, Dropbox. For each referral that subsequently joins OneDrive, Microsoft are offering a free 500MB increase to the referrer's available storage, up to a maximum of 10 referrals. Another 3GB storage can be unlocked for free for accounts which utilise the OneDrive app on an iOS, Android or Windows Phone-powered smart phone. With the most recent update to the Android app, all three platform's apps now offer an option to upload photos taken on the phone directly to OneDrive - and if you opt in, the extra 3GB storage will be added to your account.