Microsoft places severe limits on unlimited OneDrive Storage

Yesterday the news broke that Microsoft will be drastically change the way they deal with OneDrive subscriptions. Users of Office 365 will no longer have unlimited storage and users with a free account will be reduced from 15GB towards 5 GB storage.

With that sudden move Microsoft certainly is thinning their service and last years promise. Last year Microsoft posted bombastically that users of Office 365 Home (a subscription based Office) would get unlimited storage, that promise is now retracted. You'll get 1 TBG of storage space.

Here are the changes:

• No longer 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.

MS are  taking the following steps to make this transition as easy as possible for customers:

• 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. 
• 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.

In a blog post the OneDrive team explains that it’s making these changes after some of its unlimited subscribers each uploaded more than 75 terabytes of data to its servers. Microsoft really didn't see that one coming ? E.g. that no one would take advantage of its promise to offer unlimited storage? If Microsoft didn’t anticipate this development all along, it probably shouldn't have committed to it and announce it so bombastically. OneDrive is now just another cloud, like many.