SkyDrive Rebranded To OneDrive Following Legal Tussle With British Sky Broadcasting

Trademarks are tricky business, often involving legal battles over whether a common word — such as "sky" — that is well-known for a specific brand — such as British Sky Broadcasting — can be snapped up from usage among other brands, such as Microsoft's SkyDrive. Such became the source of an infringement claim against Microsoft by BSkyB, and all of it has been followed by an announcement today that Microsoft will be rebranding SkyDrive to OneDrive.

Microsoft never explicitly states the rebranding is the result of the legal troubles, though in a blog post today the company did link to an article detailing the trademark tussle. Says the company, users often have multiple devices and want one centralized place to store their stuff — hence the new name OneDrive.

It appears the only change taking place for current SkyDrive users — both regular and Pro — is the name change. Says Microsoft, "you're all set. The service will continue to operate as you expect and all of your content will be available on OneDrive and OneDrive for Business respectively..."

The new name is still rolling out across the service, so you might still be seeing SkyDrive at the moment. The video above ushers it in, though it is more promotional than educational. All information for the cloud storage suface is now taking place over on Microsoft's new OneDrive.com domain, as well.

SOURCE: OneDrive Blog