UPDATED 15:47 EST / MARCH 06 2014

Microsoft delivers on new CEO’s vision for consumerization of IT with OneDrive for Business

onedrive microsoftMicrosoft has turned a problem into an opportunity with its cloud locker, which had to be renamed in the aftermath of a trademark dispute with British Sky Broadcasting Group. Besides a new logo, the recently unveiled OneDrive introduces additional features and makes it easier for users to access the hosted version of Office, which was also rebranded last month.

Microsoft this week hit another milestone on its cloud journey with the launch of OneDrive for Business, a standalone service that plugs into Office Online and comes with native companion apps for Android, iOS and WIndows Phone. The launch represents an important step towards CEO Satya Nadella’s vision for the modern enterprise, which encompasses, among other things, the consumerization of IT.

“I like to describe it as transforming IT to be much more people-centric,” Nadella commented during an interview on SiliconANGLE’s theCUBE last year. “So you want end-users to adopt the devices they want and still have access to all their applications and data. And yet IT needs to be able to set compliance and policy.” To that end, OneDrive for Business includes what Office Division product management head Julia White described in a blog as a “strong set of enterprise-ready administrative controls.”

The service is compliant with the ISO 27001 security standard and HIPPA as well as EU privacy guidelines, according to the official product page, and enables admins to generate audit reports for common events or create custom ones to meet more specific requirements. For end-users, the offering provides 25 gigabytes of storage with the option to purchase additional capacity, offline sync and cross-platform access, in addition to other Office 365 services.

OneDrive for Business is now available as a part of Office 365 and SharePoint Online, with the standalone version set to hit general availability next month.

image courtesy Microsoft

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