Microsoft has overhauled the branding of its SkyDrive file share and sync product and cut the price of its Windows Azure cloud storage offering.
As such, the software giant is now offering lower prices for Block Blobs Storage and Disks/Page Blobs Storage, which it claims makes Azure as cheap as, if not cheaper than, rival Amazon Web Services (AWS).
“We are matching AWS’ lowest prices (US East Region) for S3 and EBS by reducing prices by up to 20 per cent and making the lower prices available in all regions worldwide. For Locally Redundant Disks/Page Blobs Storage we are reducing prices by up to 28 per cent,” said Steven Martin, general manager of Windows Azure, in a blog post.
“We are also reducing the price of Azure Storage transactions by 50 per cent,” he added.
Martin gave the specific example of Azure IaaS Disks, which from 13 March will cost $0.095/GB-month, whereas AWS customers are obliged to pay a combined price of $0.1 per month for EBS Standard Volumes and EBS Snapshot, which have to be bought together.
The move is part of a long-running price war between AWS, Windows Azure and Google. In April 2013, Microsoft promised to match the price of AWS’ compute, storage and bandwidth services.
The vendor has confirmed that SkyDrive's new name will be OneDrive, after it was ordered to change the name of it in July 2013 by the England and Wales High Court after it ruled the original name breached broadcaster BSkyB’s copyright.
With the strapline “one place for everything in your life”, the company said in a blog that the new name more accurately reflects its vision for the service.
Ryan Gavin, general manager for consumer apps and services, explained the thinking behind the new name.
“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,” said Gavin.
No date has been given for when the rebrand will take place, although Gavin said users will be able to experience the new OneDrive “soon”.
He added that current SkyDrive users do not need to do anything ahead of the change, as all their content will move to OneDrive automatically.
