Microsoft finally gives OneDrive for Business customers unlimited storage

Microsoft today announced that it’s finally providing unlimited storage to people who pay for the OneDrive for Business cloud file sharing service.

This fulfills a promise that Microsoft made last year. Once known as SkyDrive Pro, OneDrive for Business unlimited storage will be provided to customers of specific product SKUs:

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• Office 365 Enterprise E3, E4, E5
• Office 365 Government E3, E4, E5
• Office 365 Education
• OneDrive for Business Plan 2
• SharePoint Online Plan 2

These products now clearly stand out from the basic OneDrive service, as well as other Microsoft products that include OneDrive for Business (not including the ones above). End users of those products will continue to have 1TB of storage and will not get the unlimited storage perk.

The move also brings Microsoft on par with other cloud sync and share services with unlimited storage, including Box and Amazon Cloud Drive.

Still, this is not a perfectly positive development, especially given what has happened to OneDrive users recently. Microsoft made the very controversial decision to take away unlimited cloud storage for Office 365 consumer subscribers and reinstitute the 1TB cap. Microsoft apologized for that last week. Today the company is apologizing for a second time.

“Overall, we have taken too long to provide an update on our storage plans around OneDrive for Business,” Microsoft OneDrive and SharePoint corporate vice president Jeff Teper wrote in a blog post. “We also recognize we are disappointing customers who expected unlimited storage across every Office 365 plan, and I want to apologize for not meeting your expectations. We are committed to earning your business every day by delivering a great productivity and collaboration service and improving our communication approach.”

But Microsoft isn’t just apologizing today — it’s also rolling out the production-ready OneDrive for Business Next Generation Sync Client, which was previously in preview. It’s now available for Windows 7, 8, and 10. A Mac client will be out by the end of this month, and Windows 8.1 support will arrive in the first quarter of next year, with SharePoint and Office support also on the way, Teper wrote.

The Office Lens app on iOS now lets you upload content into OneDrive for Business. That functionality will extend to Android and Windows 10 Mobile in the first quarter of next year. And OneDrive’s iOS app will support offline storage by the end of this month. The feature will roll out for Windows 10 Mobile in the second quarter of next year.

Microsoft is also introducing a OneDrive for Business application programming interface (API). Documentation is available here.