Microsoft takes back promises of unlimited OneDrive for Business storage for all but premium users

Apologises via blog, but is the damage done?

Microsoft has announced it will not be offering unlimited OneDrive for Business storage for all paying customers, despite earlier promises that this would be on the company's roadmap.

The company has published an entry on its Office blog informing that Office 365 customers on premium Enterprise, Government and Education plans will receive OneDrive for Business unlimited storage.

The specifics here are Office 365 Enterprise or Government E3, E4 and £5 plans, Education plans or Business Plan 2 and SharePoint Online Plan 2.
All other users "will continue to receive 1 TB of storage per user," says the blog, credited to OneDrive and SharePoint VP Jeff Teper.

"While customers on these plans will not receive the full unlimited benefit, we expect it will serve the vast majority of users. Today, most OneDrive for Business users consume significantly less than 1 TB."

Teper also directly apologises for taking "too long to provide an update" on its plans for OneDrive storage:

"Overall, we have taken too long to provide an update on our storage plans around OneDrive for Business. 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."

The reason Microsoft is forced to acknowledge these customer expectations is because in October 2014, the company heavily insinuated that all OneDrive for Business customers would be receiving unlimited storage as part of the company's ongoing roadmap for the service.

"For OneDrive for Business customers, unlimited storage will be listed on the Office 365 roadmap in the coming days and we will begin updating the First Release customers in 2015, aligned with our promise to provide ample notification for significant service changes," said the October 2014 blog, this time credited to Chris Jones, another VP of OneDrive and SharePoint.

"In the meantime, get started using your 1 TB of storage today by backing up all those work files kicking around on your PC - with the knowledge that even more storage is on its way!" continues the blog, sowing seeds that, for many, would never sprout.

Microsoft also ended unlimited storage for consumer OneDrive users back in November 2015, drawing criticisms that it had fueled migrations from services such as Google Drive with implied promises of storage space that, ultimately, were not delivered.

Are you a OneDrive for Business customer? Will Microsoft's volte face affect the way you use the company's storage service in future?