Apple's Mac future resides in the cloud

Absence makes the mind speculate. At least, that's the case for industry observers waiting to see what happens with Apple's overall Mac strategy this week.

My ZDNet colleague, David Gewirtz, believes that Apple's lack of innovation in Mac product releases over the last several years seems to indicate that the platform is running out of steam -- that effectively, the company has "given up" and has ceded mobile PC computing to its competitors, namely Microsoft.

I think "given up" is a bit too strong of a descriptor. I think the correct term is closer to "transitioning away from".

Apple has, since the rise of the iPhone and the iPad and the App Store ecosystem, been deriving most of its income from mobile device products, not Macs.

Microsoft And IBM In The Cloud

Summary

• Endless possibilities available for the cloud.
• Cloud revenue of $127.5 billion expected by 2018.
• Microsoft’s LinkedIn acquisition will increase content availability and user connectivity.
• IBM’s VMware partnership also building desktop application solutions.

Cloud computing has been evolving since the 1990s when the internet was first commercialized. Since then individuals and businesses have become increasingly reliant upon it for everyday personal and work activities. It's a capability that allows stored data to be accessed virtually anywhere through the internet. As a result of its convenience and lower cost, more and more companies in today's business environment are evolving their technological infrastructures from servers to the cloud.

Samsung Snaps Up Joyent, the Best-Kept Secret in Cloud Computing

ONE OF THE best-kept secrets in cloud computing has just found a new home. Samsung Electronics announced Wednesday that it will acquire Joyent, a vital but lesser-known player the cloud hosting market—and one with quite a history behind it.

Joyent sells hosting services that enable customers to run their software in the cloud, not unlike those offered by Amazon Web Services or Microsoft Azure, and also helps companies build their own cloud-style systems in their own data centers. It has also boasted marquee clients such as Adobe and European telco giant Telefónica. But it’s perhaps best known for incubating a software development platform called Node.js, which is now one of the most popular programming tools on the planet.

Google and the war of the clouds: IoT isn’t the point

At London’s Cloud Expo, Barak Regey, Google’s director of cloud platforms for Europe, recommended that cloud companies simply abandon trying to predict how their data and cloud capacity needs will evolve over the next five years.

The cloud expert stated that with the explosion of the Internet of Things (IoT) and the pace of innovation and change in the technology industry, cloud organisations simply won’t be able to calculate and prepare for how much cloud capacity they’ll need.

Hybrid Cloud Industry Overview 2020

The global hybrid market provides features of both private and public cloud computing which gives organizations the flexibility to store their data. Global cloud computing market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 26% with revenue of $38 billion by 2015. Hybrid cloud is projected to have the highest share in the revenue as it provides features of both cloud computing services. The key driver for growth of the market is the ability to use multiple features of public and private cloud resulting in reduction in of deployment cost. For example, an organization can save sensitive client data using the private cloud feature and interlink that data through public cloud for billing purpose.

However, using the public and private features can create networking issues, which is a key restraint for the market growth. The APIs used for hybrid cloud require complex networking that can lead to interruption in data transfer and affect the productivity. Additionally, hybrid cloud increases the dependability on internal IT infrastructure. Cloud service providers are involved in research to overcome this challenge.  Some of the key companies profiled in this report are Amazon Web Services, Akamai Technologies, Cisco Systems, Google Inc., IBM Corp, Hewlett Packet, Dell, Microsoft Corporation, VM Ware, and Yahoo Inc.

KEY BENEFITS

• This report provides market intelligence with respect to type, delivery model, industry vertical and geographies so that companies can make precise decisions about their investment options
• Enable informed decision making process by offering market analysis based on current market situation, expected future trends and market intelligence
• Assess and rank the top factors that are expected to affect the growth of the market
• Value chain analysis provides inputs about the role of the all stakeholders of the market
• Porter’s five force analysis provides the competitive scenario, threat of new entrants and substitutes along with the potency of suppliers and buyers

Read More: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/hybrid-cloud-market

Apple signs up to Google Cloud services

Apple has moved some of its iCloud services onto the Google Cloud, marking one of the most high-profile wins for Alphabet's rival to Amazon Web Services since it came under new leadership last fall.

Google has been a distant third in its race with Amazon and Microsoft's Azure as the trio vie for market share in cloud computing, but it has made strides since the appointment of industry veteran Diane Greene as head of that business in November.

Google also scored a victory with Spotify last month, when the music streaming service announced it would shift away from Amazon Web Services and move most of its services onto the Google Cloud platform.

Apple's move to Google comes as part of a broader diversification for its wide range of internet services, which include iCloud backups such as photo storage, music streaming and video downloads. Apple already uses cloud services from Amazon and Microsoft, as well as its own data centers, according to people familiar with the matter.Apple could eventually take more of these services in-house, and it has disclosed plans to build three new data centres over the next two years, in addition to the four it already has.

As one of the world's biggest companies with rapidly growing needs for storage and computing, Apple is a prize customer for cloud service providers. Analysts suggested that it may be playing providers off of each other at a time of high competition.

Read More: http://www.cnbc.com/2016/03/17/apple-signs-up-to-google-cloud-services-in-major-win-over-amazon.html

Avnet joins Microsoft Cloud OS network

Avnet A/NZ is the first distributor in the region to be accepted into the Microsoft Cloud Operating System Network (COSN).

COSN is a group of Cloud service providers which collaborate with Microsoft to offer technically­ validated, Cloud-­based infrastructure and application solutions.

IBM vs Microsoft and the battle for the corporate cloud business

One year ago, I wrote a blog post to mark the fact that Microsoft's quarterly results were better than IBM's, and that what had been a tiny start-up when it supplied IBM with PC DOS had overtaken a company that had had a monopoly market share of corporate data processing since the 1930s. Nobody expected that.

Of course, nowadays, both companies are trying to move from fading legacy businesses into fast-growing cloud-based businesses. And, like Apple, both have been hit by "headwinds" in the form of a strengthening dollar, which has devalued their overseas earnings.

IBM had also set itself up for a fall by selling its System X (Intel x86 server) business to Lenovo. This boosted IBM's profits when the deal went through, but hurt its revenues over the full year.

As a result, IBM's revenues fell by 8.5 percent to $22.1 billion in its latest quarter, and its profits fell by 18.6 percent to $4.5 billion. In the same quarter, Microsoft's revenues fell by 2 percent to $25.7 billion, but its profits grew by 8 percent to $6.3 billion.

This was IBM's 15th straight quarter of revenue declines, and in after-hours trading, its shares fell by 4.9 percent to $121.86, the lowest for five years. After Microsoft's results, by contrast, its shares jumped by "more than 8 percent in after-hours trading, but then gave back some of those gains", according to CNBC.

In its full year results, IBM's revenues dipped to $81.7bn, a fall of 11.9 percent. This is a level IBM first achieved in 1998, when Microsoft's turnover was $15.3bn and a struggling Apple could only manage $5.9bn. For comparison, Microsoft's revenues were $88.1bn in calendar 2015, while Apple managed an astonishing $235bn.

IBM peaked at $107bn in 2011, and looks unlikely to see that number again.

Either way, IBM's $81.7bn was some way behind the $93.6bn that Microsoft achieved in its fiscal 2015 results, declared in June. This substantiated my claim that Microsoft really was bigger than IBM.

Read More: http://www.zdnet.com/article/ibm-vs-microsoft-and-the-battle-for-the-corporate-cloud-business/

Microsoft Profit and Revenue Fall, but Cloud Computing Grows

SEATTLE — Satya Nadella has put cloud computing at the center of Microsoft’s strategy. It is a move that looks to be paying off, at least in the eyes of investors.

On Thursday the company said its revenue and profit fell in the last quarter. But it mattered little, as Microsoft made more from cloud computing, and its stock jumped more than 5 percent immediately after the numbers were released.

The results underscored the good and bad trends that have come to characterize Microsoft’s financial results in recent years. On the negative side, there is the floundering personal computer business, which is hurting profits from longtime Microsoft software businesses, especially Windows. On the positive, the company’s cloud business keeps growing, giving investors hope that Microsoft will remain relevant for years to come.

The success of Microsoft’s cloud business under Mr. Nadella, its new chief executive, has put the company’s stock back in favor with investors. Even with recent anxiety in the stock market, Microsoft’s shares are up more than 28 percent for the last year, while shares in rivals like Apple, Oracle and IBM have declined by double digits.

By most analysts’ estimates, Microsoft is in second place in the most prominent segment of the cloud services market — in which computer storage and other services in data centers are rented to customers — after Amazon. IBM and Google are next.

For its second fiscal quarter, which ended on Dec. 31, the company reported net income of nearly $5 billion, or 62 cents a share, compared with $5.86 billion, or 71 cents a share, during the same period a year earlier.

Read More: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/29/technology/microsoft-earnings.html?_r=0

Facts and statistics about Cloud Computing

Cloud computing describes the use of networks of remote servers - usually accessed over the Internet - to store, manage, and process data. As a segment of IT services, cloud computing is generating billions of dollars in revenue annually and showing few signs of slowing down. For customers, cloud computing offers access to numerous technologies while lowering the barriers to entry, such as technical expertise or costs. Typically, the cloud service market is divided into three primary service models, encompassing infrastructure, platforms, and software. Depending on a business's needs and security concerns, customers can also choose between private, public, or hybrid cloud deployment.

The largest segment of cloud computing is Software as a Service (SaaS), which currently generates more than half of the cloud computing market's revenue and has become a common delivery model for many business applications. Popular services include customer relationship management and enterprise resource planning software. Under this model, customers pay for access to software and databases, while the infrastructure and platforms are managed by the service provider. Salesforce, Microsoft, Adobe, and SAP are all major players in this segment.

On the next tier, Platform as a Service (PaaS) grants customers access to a computing platform for application development. This platform may include an operating system, web servers, databases, and the access to one or more programming-language environments. Salesforce has the highest market share in the PaaS segment, although established other players like Amazon and Microsoft also hold sizeable proportions. While experts predict the cloud platform market to grow rapidly over the next decade, it is nevertheless expected to remain the smallest cloud computing segment by some margin.

Read More: http://www.statista.com/topics/1695/cloud-computing/

Private cloud: Strategy and tactics from the big boys

Comment A few weeks ago I attended the Italian VMUG user conference. One of the most interesting sessions at the event was “Strategic Private Cloud”, presented by Alan Civita of Sky UK, who confirmed what is now a common trend in very large IT organisations: a strategy based on two different private clouds.

Cloud is a synonym for operational agility and efficiency. Many IT organisations have been migrating to the cloud for a while now and, at the beginning, the public cloud seemed to be the cure for all ills (with AWS and Microsoft being the providers of choice).

Well, this was true until the bills started coming in, which was when many discovered that costs can quickly become unsustainable.

As someone told me a few days ago, “doing only public cloud is like living at the Four Seasons” and I couldn’t agree more. Private and hybrid clouds are not to be seen as a step back; on the contrary, they are actually becoming more and more popular because, when it comes to large organisations, they have the right balance between cost, efficiency and flexibility.

Why two (or more) clouds?

The IT problem is always the same, heading towards the future while managing the legacy. In this case, the legacy is virtualisation or, more commonly, VMware-based infrastructures. On the other hand, the future is an AWS-like cloud for new applications designed to take advantage of its characteristics, and OpenStack is the basic component that can help to realize this vision.

A VMware-based cloud is fundamental to all traditional enterprise needs, applications and workloads. Usually, it is just an IaaS but because of its status of “enterprise cloud”, everything is supported and managed end-to-end. This means that any resource part of it has a first-class status and end users are real end users who expect performance, stability, availability, consistency, backups and so on. They want it, and they don’t care how it’s done.

Furthermore, in some cases, and back to the point of “everything is managed end-to-end,” users go through traditional provisioning processes and don’t see any cloud aspect at all. The cloud part of this infrastructure is seen only by the ops team, and even then as an evolution of the legacy infrastructure they’ve always managed.

Read More: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/12/21/private_clouds_strategy_and_tactics/

Google To Amazon: Our Cloud's Still Cheaper

Amazon, Microsoft, and Google aren’t slashing cloud prices as fast and furious as they did two years ago, but there’s still plenty of smack talk going on.

For example, Google  GOOG -0.10%  on Friday took to its cloud blog to proclaim that its cloud computing service is less expensive than comparable Amazon  AMZN 0.78% Web Services products.

MORE: On cloud price cuts.

To back up a bit, AWS trimmed prices 5% on Tuesday for some Elastic Compute Cloud instances, its 51st cost cut to date across all its services. Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) is Amazon’s term for units of computing power that it sells or rents to customers. EC2 “instances” are the cloud equivalent of a computer’s central processing unit.

Three days later, Google pointed out that its most comparable custom machine types (Google’s term for cloud computing resources) remain 15% to 41% less expensive than Amazon’s latest price, depending on configuration. And, it provided a helpful comparison chart.


Of course this is a discussion that high-level executives may not care about, but the accountants in the chief information officer’s office need to keep an eye on cloud costs. Cloud usage is initially cheaper than buying a lot of hardware and software to run in-house, but hey it still costs money.

Read More: http://fortune.com/2016/01/08/google-amazon-cloud-price-war/

Four Top Picks for the Cloud in 2016

We see several opportunities to continue to play the dynamic changes that are occurring in enterprise software as enterprises adopt the Professional Cloud.

The Professional Cloud requires significant capital expenditures. Therefore, only the largest companies with the greatest cash resources and cash flows can play in the Professional Cloud. Cloud titans like Microsoft (ticker: MSFT), Amazon.com ( AMZN ) and [Alphabet’s] Google ( GOOGL ) are likely to dominate, but strong opportunities should continue for more specialized Professional Cloud providers like Salesforce.com ( CRM ) and ServiceNow ( NOW ).

As a result, software-as-a-service (SaaS) is likely to see further consolidation around a few platform leaders. The consolidation may occur through merger activity, but it is also occurring as companies develop more applications. SaaS leaders like Salesforce.com, HubSpot ( HUBS ), Zendesk ( ZEN ), Workday ( WDAY ) and Veeva Systems ( VEEV ) are all continuing to add functionality, which enables them to consolidate their leadership.

Legacy enterprise vendors should continue to move as quickly as possible to the Professional Cloud. Adobe Systems ( ADBE ) and Autodesk ( ADSK ) continue to provide good examples of companies that are making that transition. Conversely, Oracle ( ORCL ) and SAP ( SAP ) have been more challenged by the transition to the Professional Cloud, and they are lagging their peers.

As result, we continue to recommend Adobe, Autodesk, Salesforce.com, HubSpot, Microsoft, Veeva, Workday and Zendesk. Our best ideas for 2016 include Microsoft in large caps, Autodesk in mid-caps, and HubSpot and Zendesk in small-caps.

Read More: http://www.barrons.com/articles/four-top-picks-for-the-cloud-in-2016-1452195897

Amazon Launches Its First Cloud Data Centers in Korea

Promising to reduce cloud latency for its Korean customers, Amazon Web Services has launched several cloud data centers in the country, establishing a fifth availability region in Asia Pacific. The other four are Sigapore, Beijing, Tokyo, and Sydney.

The company didn’t specify how many data centers the new region consisted of or where exactly they were in Korea. They’re likely in or just outside of Seoul, since it’s called the Seoul region. The region currently has two availability zones, and each zone usually consists of one or more data centers.

Amazon said existing customers who are either based in Korea or do business in the Korean market have requested that the provider launch physical data centers there. Because of latency and in some cases for data-sovereignty reasons, providing infrastructure cloud services globally has become a race to expand geographic reach of the physical infrastructure that only a few players have the resources to participate in.

So far, Amazon and Microsoft have been the two main contenders in the race. Google, considered to be the third cloud giant, doesn’t have nearly as much of its global data center capacity dedicated to its cloud infrastructure services, which may start to change this year.

IBM, following its acquisition of data center service provider SoftLayer, went on a global cloud data center expansion push last year and the year before. Many others, such as HP and Dell, have dropped out of the race, while big telcos, including CenturyLink, Verizon, and AT&T, are reassessing their future in the cloud and data center services market, exploring alternatives to owning the massive data center portfolios they built out in recent years to chase the cloud opportunity.

Read More: http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2016/01/07/amazon-launches-its-first-cloud-data-centers-in-korea/

2016 cloud computing forecast: Private, hybrid, and automation

As we look forward to 2016, there is a lot to reflect on and forecast in cloud. Below you will find my top predictions for the year ahead.

RIP private cloud

The biggest missed story of 2015 has been the profound failure of the private cloud.

Just a few years ago, the private cloud was IT’s solution to remaining relevant to their business partners. I remember attending OpenStack Boston 2011 at the height of the private cloud movement, where everyone seemed convinced of the inevitability of the self-managed private cloud. But after years of incredible innovation in the public cloud and disarray in private cloud, 2016 will be the year that the private cloud as a primary strategy will finally go to its grave.

I expect some big shake ups in the private cloud, especially in the OpenStack community. Unless the private cloud substantially changes its pace of innovation, it will become a speed bump for enterprises on their way into the public cloud.

Google still doesn’t figure it out

If there was ever a company that should own the public cloud, it would be Google. They were building cutting-edge cloud infrastructure while the rest of us were still talking about our type 1 hypervisors. They even introduced the term “cloud computing” into our lexicon. I don’t know about you, but with the exception of a handful of mobile companies that built their businesses on AppEngine, I rarely run into a Google cloud customer.

While I believe Google has the vision, financial resources, and technical capacity to be a top cloud provider, I predict they will continue to lose more ground in 2016. To take liberty with the famous Wayne Gretzky quote, in the process to skating to where Google thinks the puck will be, companies like Amazon and Microsoft are busy putting the puck in the net.

Read More: http://www.cloudcomputing-news.net/news/2016/jan/04/2016-cloud-computing-forecast-private-hybrid-and-automation/

Cloud Services are Eating the World

The cloud revolution is impacting the technology sector. You can clearly see it in the business results of companies like HP and IBM. For sure, legacy technology providers are embracing the cloud. They are transforming their businesses from building and running on-premise infrastructures to delivering cloud-based services. The harsh reality is that this is a destructive transformation. For every dollar that exits legacy environments, only a fraction comes back through cloud services. This is the great promise of the cloud – maximizing economies of scale, efficient resource utilization and smart sharing of scarce capabilities.

It is just the latest phase of the destructive force that technology applies to all parts of our economy. Traditionally, technology vendors touted benefits such as personnel efficiencies and operational savings as part of the justification for purchasing new technologies – a politically correct way to refer to fewer people, offices and the support systems around them. This has now inevitably impacted the technology vendors themselves. Early indicators were abundant: Salesforce.com has displaced Siebel systems, reducing the need for costly and customized implementations; and Amazon AWS is increasingly displacing physical servers, reducing the need for processors, cabinets, cabling, power and cooling.

Cloud is Eating the World

Marc Andreseen argued in his 2011 Wall Street Journal article that, “software is eating the world.” In my view, this observation is now obsolete. Today, cloud services are eating the world. Cloud services encapsulate and commoditizes the entire technology stack (software, hardware, platforms and professional services). This model is so impactful and irresistible that even capturing only a part of the value is a big win. This is how cloud services now include platforms – including Google, Microsoft, Salesforce.com; and infrastructure, provided by such vendors as Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure and IBM/Softlayer.

Read More: http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2016/01/04/cloud-services-eating-world/

6 Changes to Expect in Data Security, Cloud and Mobile Tech

Several industry analysts have forecast that 2016 will be the ‘year of action’ on many technology fronts, as several recent trends become commonplace strategies. Cloud computing, data security and mobile are tops among them.

Indeed, “2016 will be a challenging year for IT as mobile and cloud force CIOs to adopt a more agile model of information security, policy design, technology evaluation, and lifecycle management,” says Ojas Rege, vice president of strategy at MobileIron. “This new approach overturns 30 years of legacy process and mindset but it can no longer be avoided. As a result, 2016 will be the first year of true transformation.”

Rege offered Information Management his six top predictions for what we can expect in 2016 on the mobile technology and cloud computing fronts. They are:


A brewing battle between modern and legacy

“In 2016, tension is building between the mobile and desktop teams in enterprise IT,” Rege says. “The catalyst will be Windows 10, which will allow organizations to adopt enterprise mobility management (EMM) solutions to secure the next generation of laptops and desktops. Over time, this approach will replace the traditional system image for many use cases because it promises greater security, agility, and cost-effectiveness. However, it will also disrupt existing desktop operations and create technology, budget, and organizational tensions between the splinter mobile team and the established desktop team.

An issue of end-user identity

There are many players and many approaches to the problem of end-user identity. Two of the key participants are Microsoft and Google, and this will be a long-term conflict. Both companies believe that identity is the foundation upon which services are provided to the user community. Both believe that if your platform is the authoritative source of that identity, then you will have a better chance of providing those services than the other company.”

“One battle line was drawn in 2015 when Microsoft did not support Google’s Android for Work initiative for most of the year, in part because it brought Google identity into the enterprise. Microsoft sees identity as its central control point for the cloud - the “who / what / where / how” of all enterprise services,” Rege notes.

Read More: http://www.information-management.com/news/data-management/6-changes-to-expect-in-data-security-cloud-and-mobile-tech-10027970-1.html

Adoption of cloud computing in the enterprise: The progress in 2015

In general, cloud penetration across the enterprise in terms of workloads being completed continues to be at a relatively low level, with many analysts firms reporting that penetration is at rates of less than 10 percent.

That said, the journey has begun in most organizations and Ovum has identified that nearly 75 percent of organizations will adopt some hybrid cloud strategy by 2016.

We’re seeing a mixture of SaaS, PaaS and IaaS being consumed by organizations which are clearly determined to utilize next generation cloud technologies to make themselves not only more agile, but also more focused on their own businesses and less on the business of IT.

How Will the Elimination of US Safe Harbor Impact This Momentum Going Forward?

Safe Harbour protections of PII data are, in essence, to be lifted by 1 January 2016. With little time remaining to react, the overwhelming number of US-based SaaS providers are ill prepared to offer a sovereign European SaaS solution within the time available. What’s more, there are also cases such as the US government vs. Microsoft looming in which the central issue of data privacy is evolving from data location to data stewardship. Organizations in general are more questioning not only about where their data is stored, but also the nationality of the company that is offering the data management service.

The net viability of popular enterprise SaaS services offered by US companies -- either with data centers in the US or elsewhere -- is being called into question. In response to the uncertainty and chaos, we’re seeing enterprise customers gravitate to application deployment models where the data, the metadata and the encryption keys are owned and managed exclusively by the customer and stored in the data centre or the secure virtual private cloud of their choice.

Read More: http://betanews.com/2015/12/29/adoption-of-cloud-computing-in-the-enterprise-the-progress-in-2015/

Microsoft chief Satya drops an S bomb in Windows 10, cloud talk

Microsoft claims it really does care about privacy and securing the cloud and Windows 10, promising to build cybersecurity teams and investing in the area.

A new Cyber Defense Operations Center will bring together security response experts from across the technology giant in a new “state-of-the-art” facility. The unit will be staffed around the clock by security professionals, data analysts, engineers, developers, program managers, and operations specialists.

Workers at the facility will work closely with a Microsoft Enterprise Cybersecurity Group. The business unit will offer security assessments and provides ongoing monitoring, threat detection, and incident response capabilities. Regular infused consultants and vendors offer similar service, but Microsoft aims to distinguish itself through the experience of delivering cloud-based services to both consumers (XBox Live) and enterprises (Azure, Office 365).

A new Enterprise Mobility Suite (EMS) will offer support for mobile application management without the need to enroll the device. The technology will incorporate features that aim to help IT staff in protecting and managing corporate applications and data on any Windows, iOS, and Android device.

Microsoft chief exec Satya Nadella outlined the strategy at an event in Washington DC on Tuesday morning. The speech was the first time Nadella has talked about security since becoming Microsoft chief exec.

Read More : http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/11/17/ms_revamps_security_strategy/

Microsoft is breaking its cloud-first promise

Microsoft kicked off its own "productivity war" in June last year by doubling its free OneDrive storage and offering competitive pricing and 1TB of space for Office 365 subscribers. That storage, part of a monthly or annual subscription, then transformed into unlimited space late last year as Microsoft aggressively targeted Dropbox and Google to win over consumers and their storage needs. It all won Microsoft lots of new OneDrive customers and a lot of praise. Now that the bait and switch plan has worked, Microsoft is changing the rules of the game.

Technology companies usually pick Apple events to silently drop bad news, but if there's not one available then as late in the day as possible is always a good alternative. Microsoft chose 10PM ET last night to drop some big news, in a blog post, about the future of its OneDrive cloud storage service. Starting early next year, all new and existing free OneDrive storage will decrease from 15GB to 5GB. Microsoft is also removing the 15GB camera roll storage bonus for using OneDrive on iOS, Android, or Windows Phone. If you need to store more than 5GB then you'll need to start paying.

It's clear Microsoft has miscalculated how much space OneDrive needs on average, and it's likely that the company isn't making its targets for switching users over to paid subscribers. Pushing the limits down will help. "These changes are needed to ensure that we can continue to deliver a collaborative, connected, and intelligent service," says Microsoft. The reality is more that Microsoft needs to start generating revenue from its consumer cloud activities and stop giving away thousands of GBs of storage. It was good to entice people in, but now it's time to pay. Microsoft really wants consumers to just opt for Office 365 subscriptions with OneDrive storage and Office software.

Read more : http://www.theverge.com/2015/11/3/9663878/microsoft-onedrive-free-storage-changes-cloud-first