Around a year ago Microsoft announced that all Office 365 subscribers would get unlimited OneDrive storage space. On Tuesday the company revealed that they have no intention of keeping that promise.
On October 27 2014, with a great deal of fanfare, Microsoft announced that its Office 365 subscribers would all be upgraded to “unlimited” OneDrive storage plans. At the time, Chris Jones, VP of the division responsible for OneDrive, stated: “Today, storage limits just became a thing of the past with Office 365. Moving forward, all Office 365 customers will get unlimited OneDrive storage at no additional cost. We’ve started rolling this out today to Office 365 Home, Personal, and University customers.”
During the past few months, subscribers of Office 365 have grumbled about only having 1 TB of storage space, which while great is far from “unlimited”. Help was barely offered and subscribers were left fuming. Now we know why.
In an announcement, Microsoft announced its plans to renege on that promise. In fact, the company is dramatically scaling back its free storage across the board. The key points of the announcement is as follows:
- We’re no longer planning to offer unlimited storage to Office 365 Home, Personal, or University subscribers. Starting now, those subscriptions will include 1 TB of OneDrive storage.
- 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.
- If you are an Office 365 consumer subscriber and have stored in excess of 1 TB, you will be notified of this change and will be able to keep your increased storage for at least 12 months.
- If you are an Office 365 consumer subscriber and find that Office 365 no longer meets your needs, a pro-rated refund will be given. To learn more visit the FAQ.
- If you are using more than 5 GB of free storage, you will continue to have access to all files for at least 12 months after these changes go into effect in early 2016. In addition, you can redeem a free one-year Office 365 Personal subscription (credit card required), which includes 1 TB of OneDrive storage.
- Current customers of standalone OneDrive storage plans (such as a 100 or 200 GB plans) are not affected by these changes.
The reasoning behind this unwillingness? According to Microsoft, “a small number of subscribers backed up numerous PCs and stored entire movie collections and DVR recordings. In some instances, this exceeded 75 TB per user or 14,000 times the average.” Did no one consider that the offer of unlimited storage, was insanely attractive? What this is, is in fact a poorly worded excuse for not being able to deliver something that was promised. It seems that the OneDrive team at Microsoft did not account for the “unlimited” part of their “unlimited storage” promise.
