Win 10 and The Cloud

Microsoft has built one of the largest, most sophisticated cloud infrastructures in the world, using it to power Azure, Office 365, and other enterprise mainstays. By 2018,     those commercial services should bring in $20 billion a year     (up from the current run rate of $8 billion annually), making them an essential part of Microsoft's post-Windows future.

       

The company's history with consumer-based cloud services is almost as long but not nearly as successful.

   

The SkyDrive service (now known as OneDrive, thanks to Microsoft's loss in a trademark infringement lawsuit two years ago) launched in August 2007 and has been under steady evolution since then. The OneDrive synchronization client was integrated into Windows 8 in 2012, nearly three years ago, with a major update a year later.

       

With all that experience, surely OneDrive should be a marquee feature in Windows 10?

If only.

When Windows 10 begins its global rollout in one week, it will include a OneDrive client that is functionally equivalent to what shipped in Windows 8, three years ago. Last fall, the OneDrive product team sheepishly announced it was     yanking the "smart files" feature, which it had introduced with much fanfare in Windows 8.1.

       

The version of Windows 10 that the public will see beginning July 29 includes a basic OneDrive client that allows selective synchronization of files with its consumer OneDrive service. Office 365 Business customers have to install a separate client to access storage in the OneDrive for Business service.