Microsoft’s SkyDrive is now OneDrive

skydrive 1

Microsoft’s multi-platform cloud storage service SkyDrive has just been rechristened and shall be known henceforth as OneDrive. The rebranding comes following last June’s ruling in a trademark case involving Microsoft and British TV broadcaster BSkyB.

As the television broadcaster trademarked the term ‘Sky,’ the court ordered that Microsoft concede the ‘SkyDrive’ trademark to BSkyB.

One of the largest pay-TV providers in Europe, BSkyB offers video streaming and has its own online storage service called Sky Store & Share…

According to a company blog post, the new OneDrive is coming soon and customers can sign up to learn more when it launches at the newly-created onedrive.com website.

A notice on the website reads:

Get ready for an even better place to store and share your favorite things across all your favorite devices. OneDrive is everything you love about SkyDrive and more. And it’s coming soon.

If you use SkyDrive or SkyDrive Pro, don’t worry as these services will continue to operate. Your content will be available on OneDrive and OneDrive for Business, respectively, as the new name is rolled out across the portfolio.

Microsoft OneDrive logo (large)

They believe the new name conveys best what the service is all about:

Why OneDrive? We know that increasingly you will have many devices in your life, but you really want only one place for your most important stuff. One place for all of your photos and videos. One place for all of your documents. One place that is seamlessly connected across all the devices you use. You want OneDrive for everything in your life.

And here’s the OneDrive promo vid.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4NsPPUDjyU

SkyDrive was previously called Windows Live SkyDrive and before that Windows Live Folders. In fact, Microsoft’s online services branding is still confusing as hell. Outlook.com, for example, was previously called Windows Live Mail, which itself was a rebranded Hotmail.

The OneDrive rebranding, however, is logical in light of Microsoft’s other ‘One’ products like the Xbox One. It also fits the Windows maker’s recently-announced sweeping organizational changes and the new One Microsoft strategy.

The existing SkyDrive iOS app, free in the App Store, hasn’t been renamed at the time of this writing, though that’s just a matter of a minor software update.