Microsoft officially changed the name of their enterprise-based SkyDrive Pro to OneDrive for Business a week ago and today the company confirmed that it will offer a way to access the data storage service without having to also get an Office 365 subscription.
In a post on the OneDrive blog, Microsoft said that the stand alone service will be offered starting on April 1st. It will give each employee 25GB of free cloud storage space along with the option to buy additional storage. The blog states:
With the new offering, businesses of all sizes can get started with a full-featured and intuitive file sync and share service that includes Office Online, so employees can collaborate on Office documents in real time via a browser or using their Office desktop applications.
Microsoft will offer some lower promotional pricing for OneDrive for Business from April to September. One plan will charge $2.50 a month per user for all licensing agreements and programs and the other will charge $1.50 a month per user if the company has a Office with Software Assurance or Office 365 ProPlus with Open, Enterprise Agreement, and MPSA contracts.
Microsoft has also released some new features for OneDrive for Business, including placing controls like uploading, syncing, and editing documents directly above a user"s personal folder; improvements have also been made for searching inside the OneDrive files.
Source: Microsoft | Image via Microsoft