Microsoft wants to give Windows Phone users some Christmas gifts, starting with a free 20GB of extra SkyDrive storage on top of the 25GB for anyone who signs up.
This is the first SkyDrive offer for Windows Phone users only and it comes at a time where the mobile OS is growing exceptionally in emerging markets, especially with the Nokia Lumia 521.
SkyDrive already offers the most free storage for new users, surpassing Dropbox and Google Drive’s 5GB, but the two other cloud storage options do have a lot more ways to grab extra storage.
One of the big problems with SkyDrive is they do not offer any deals with new Samsung or HTC smartphones, because that would be feeding into a competitor. Dropbox and Google Drive both offer free storage on a number of devices, Dropbox even had a deal with Samsung for 50GB of cloud storage for two years.
The 20GB of extra SkyDrive storage will only be available for one year – after users will have to pay for more storage. Microsoft has not announced how many SkyDrive users actually pay for storage, similar to Google and Dropbox.
Cloud storage is a pretty good deal for cheap Windows Phone devices, since these normally only come with 8GB of 16GB of internal storage – for smartphone with 64GB internal storage they may seem like an odd deal, but it is free.
SkyDrive does work with Microsoft Office and this can be a good way for users to work from the computer and on a mobile. We do not believe this offer will be available for Windows RT and Windows 8 tablet users.
