Microsoft Agrees To Change SkyDrive Name In Lawsuit, Launches Office For Android

Today is a bittersweet day for Microsoft. One one hand they’re launching one of their most popular services/suites on a new platform and yet on the other they’re having to rebrand their widely known SkyDrive cloud storage branding due to a lawsuit with British BSkyB broadcasting. First, the good news.

Office On Android

iOS users have had several weeks to enjoy the fruits of Office 365 on their iOS devices, allowing for mobile office creation and edition on the go. And today, Android joined the fray. While the abilities Microsoft gives mobile users are more of a “lite” feature set at best, something is better than nothing, especially considering it’s an official app from Microsoft. One other sticking point could be found in the required Office 365 subscription too, which requires a $100/yr. payment. Still, again, an official option is almost always the best.

SkyDrive Getting Rebranded

On the other side of the pond, Microsoft’s spirits aren’t quite so bright. An ongoing lawsuit with British broadcasting outfit BSkyB has finally come to an end with Microsoft finding themselves on the losing end. Microsoft has announced that they will not appeal the verdict and as such will rebrand SkyDrive – globally

For now, not much about the agreement is known outside of the rebranding, which BSkyB is giving Microsoft a “reasonable period of time to allow for an orderly transition to a new brand” before putting pressure on Redmond to find something a little less similar.

Considering how important SkyDrive is to all of Microsoft’s ecosystem, it’s a bit surprising they rolled over so quickly. Then again, everything has a price. And if it was relatively cheap to simply pay BSkyB off and rebrand, perhaps Microsoft saw the seemingly daunting task of rebranding an entire cloud ecosystem not quite so daunting in the long run.

Via: Venture Beat | The Verge