News

Microsoft Changing SkyDrive Name to 'OneDrive'

• By Jeffrey Schwartz
• January 27, 2014

As part of the terms of its settlement with the British Sky Broadcasting Group over a trademark infringement dispute, Microsoft said on Monday it is finally renaming its SkyDrive cloud storage service.

The new name, OneDrive, will take effect "soon," Microsoft announced in a blog post, though it did not specify a date. The company urged customers to sign up for alerts.

The new OneDrive name will also apply to Microsoft's SkyDrive Pro service, which Microsoft will call "OneDrive for Business." SkyDrive Pro is the file storage service for Office 365, SharePoint 2013 and SharePoint Online.

"Changing the name of a product as loved as SkyDrive wasn't easy," wrote Ryan Gavin, Microsoft's general manager for consumer apps and services, in the blog. "We believe the new OneDrive name conveys the value we can deliver for you and best represents our vision for the future."

Microsoft agreed to rename SkyDrive last fall, after losing a trademark infringement case with British Sky Broadcasting Group. At the time, Microsoft said it would rename SkyDrive after "a reasonable amount of time," though it continued to promote SkyDrive and SkyDrive Pro for months after the settlement.