Business-Class OneDrive Available Stand-Alone

OneDrive for Business is a new subscription plan that delivers SharePoint’s document storage and sharing component as a Microsoft-hosted service for business users, separate from SharePoint Online. OneDrive for Business offers organizations hosted document storage at lower cost than previous Microsoft options, and it includes the Office Online services for browser-based editing of Office documents. However, customers must be aware of what SharePoint features are offered in the plan and the plan’s potential licensing complications.

What Is OneDrive for Business?

OneDrive for Business, formerly called SkyDrive Pro, is a SharePoint component that offers business users Web-based document storage and provides document replication to some types of client devices. In Apr. 2014, Microsoft began offering OneDrive for Business in a subscription independent of the existing SharePoint Online service and announced a significant increase in default storage capacity per user, from 25GB to 1TB.

OneDrive for Business is available with the SharePoint Server 2013 SP1 software for on-premises and partner-hosted deployment. This report discusses only the identically named OneDrive for Business subscription service hosted by Microsoft.