Cloud service SkyDrive hits 250 million users

PanARMENIAN.Net - The Inside SkyDrive blog was updated on Monday, May 6 with news that over 250 million people now use Microsoft's cloud-based SkyDrive service. The news arrives after the Outlook.com team said last week that users can now pull files from SkyDrive and insert them directly into an Outlook.com email message, tomsguide.com says.

"We also announced that Microsoft accounts have grown to 700 million, that we’ve improved the security of our service with things like two-step verification, and that we now have Extended Validation Certificates integrated on SkyDrive.com," said Omar Shahine, Group Program Manager of SkyDrive.com.

Microsoft launched SkyDrive back in August 2007 as Windows Live SkyDrive, offering a mere 5 GB of online storage. Features began rolling out such as Windows Live Photos for separately accessing stored photos and videos, and support for Office Web Apps. The team overhauled SkyDrive in 2011 to support HTML5, and upgraded the file size limit from 50 MB to 100 MB. By December 2011, the team had launched an app for iOS and Windows Phone – the Android app didn't arrive until later on in August 2012. The company also introduced a desktop app for synchronizing locally-stored files with their cloud account. Free storage -- which at one point reached 25 GB in size -- was reduced back down to 7 GB of space for new users although existing users were allowed to keep the larger capacity. A recycle bin feature was added in September 2012.

Monday's report claims that 50 million customers started using SkyDrive after the launch of Windows 8 in October 2012. It also provides a visual timeline dating back to August 2012, revealing that since then, the team has launched a new look and added support to the Xbox 360 console. In March 2013, the team said it made Office Web Apps 30-percent faster, added Excel surveys, and made sharing easier. Even more, the team said one billion Office documents had been uploaded to SkyDrive since launch.

"It’s been a very busy year for SkyDrive and we’d like to thank all of you for helping us improve the service through your feedback, tweets, Facebook posts, and comments," Shahine added. "Thank you to the first 250 million, and onwards to a billion! We look forward to bringing you even more awesome features in the future."