Microsoft wants Microsoft 365 applications to encourage users to save files in OneDrive through very visible notifications. The notifications are expected to appear this month.
Microsoft is going to bombard paying professional users of Microsoft 365 with notifications about OneDrive’s backup capabilities when those users choose not to embrace cloud storage.
Those with a Microsoft 365 subscription, whether professional or personal, receive OneDrive storage space included. This cloud storage integrates with both Windows and Microsoft 365 applications. Those who choose to fully embrace the Microsoft ecosystem gain convenient benefits such as ease of use, access to documents on different devices, and backup.
Microsoft is now finalizing a system where Microsoft 365 apps like Word will complain via a banner at the top when you don’t save a file in OneDrive. The notifications are expected to appear this month, with a broader rollout by April. Organizations that have blocked KFM need not worry about this stealth advertising. The rest of the customers who choose not to save a document within OneDrive can expect commentary in the form of a notification in a yellow bar.
Pushing in the Name of Copilot
The notifications appear when you don’t save a document, spreadsheet, or presentation in a OneDrive folder, but for example, only locally or on a network share. There are good reasons for this. Perhaps the user in question works with a different storage service, or they simply choose not to entrust documents to Microsoft’s cloud services.
Redmond apparently finds this a difficult idea to understand. Those who have OneDrive should love OneDrive, the company reasons. Not coincidentally, the relevance of the Copilot AI offering is linked to the amount of company data accessible within the Microsoft ecosystem. Microsoft and Google have been engaged in a campaign to force AI down everyone’s throat for quite some time, where the user’s opinion is irrelevant. You can safely frame these plans to push OneDrive more aggressively within that strategy.
read also
Microsoft and Google ram AI down your throat (and make you pay for it)
The planned notifications are yet another attempt by Microsoft to impose its own services on users through marketing, notifications, hidden settings, and pop-ups. Microsoft seems to believe that relying on its own strengths does not lead to fast enough adoption to justify large investments in AI to investors, among other things.
The integration of Microsoft 365, OneDrive, and Windows is already strong. Moreover, the added value of combining these products is real. Those who choose not to use OneDrive despite the subscription most likely have a good reason for doing so. That won’t stop Microsoft from launching notifications in a yellow bar suggesting that working according to a method other than the one Microsoft proposes is a sin.