Microsoft's OneDrive changes: Follow the money

Microsoft could raise more than $100 million in additional annual revenue for each percentage point of OneDrive users the company prods into paying for storage space under new policies outlined last week.

Although Microsoft has not disclosed what portion of its OneDrive user base pays for storage and what fraction relies on only the free allotment, an analysis of the service's changes using available information shows that the Redmond, Wash. firm could earn nearly $107 million more each year by moving just 1% of its users from the "free" column of the ledger to "paid."

If Microsoft could somehow push, pull or drag 10% of the OneDrive estimated free user base to the lowest-priced paid option, the company would record almost $1.1 billion in extra income annually.

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