OneDrive consumer & OneDrive for Business MERGED into One Client!

[Nazmus Shakib Khandaker]

Until now, Microsoft offered two distinct applications to sync files from OneDrive consumer accounts and those from the OneDrive for Business accounts. Initially they used different engines and there was little feature parity between the two clients.

 

In the last year, Microsoft had publically committed to unify the two clients. It started by releasing a preview version of an OneDrive for Business app that used the same engine and offered similar functionality to that of the existing OneDrive consumer sync client. But in the past few days, It seems that Microsoft has completed their work, effectively merging the two services in just one sync application.

 

Now, you no longer need to download a separate client for OneDrive for Business. Your existing OneDrive for consumer sync client should be updated to allow you to sign in to a business account in addition to your personal account. The one app will now handle syncing both of your accounts. Once you do so, you will have two system tray icons, one white, which shows the sync status for your consumer account, and one blue, which shows the status of your business account.

 

 

If you have the sync client installed, it should automatically be updated. You can install the latest version from the OneDrive website.

 

Thoughts?

[PGHammer]

Makes way too much sense - I'm hoping they do the same for the Skype clients.

Server-side security (both for OneDrive and Skype) makes sense for not just enterprises; it makes sense for other restrictive/restricted usages (such as education); however, put the security in the account creds, especially if the same client is otherwise usable (as is the case with both OneDrive and Skype); otherwise, it's a pain in the rear.

[Argi]

I hope so with Skype too.  The universal app has been coming with the Insider builds but it's only for consumer but I wouldn't be surprised if it's on the way.  The protocols are vastly different though.  Don't know if they baked in the ODB API or wrote a proxy to convert ODC calls to ODB on their side.