Ooredoo Oman has launched a new data storage service, called Ooredoo Drive, through its subsidiary data2cloud. The locally hosted and secure service will be accessible via the web and via mobile app. It will provide a range of features such as a storage dashboard, recovery from accidental deletion, activity monitoring and data synchronization across an identity. Other features will include data security with end-to-end encryption, email sharing, anti-spam protection, auto-upload from devices, scanned images, and the ability to manage files offline.

Tarifica’s Take

This new data storage offering from Ooredoo Oman appears to have a very strong set of features, which would be useful and desirable to a wide range of users, both consumer and business. Cloud storage is certainly a good way for operators to expand their business, so to that extent this seems to be a good move on the part of the operator. Ooredoo Drive, as described, is flexible in terms of applications and method of access, which should also contribute to its appeal.

However, many if not most of its features are currently accessible from other, non-MNO providers such as Google, so we must ask what Ooredoo can do to acquire subscribers for its storage service. Undercutting the competition on price will certainly give the operator an advantage. Another advantage may simply be the familiarity of purchasing data storage from a known and trusted entity—one’s mobile operator—rather than from another company. And related to that, the fact that the data is locally hosted and secured by the operator may end up being the product’s best selling point. In a world where international data crimes are increasing in quantity and boldness, keeping one’s data within one’s own country and also within the ecosystem of the mobile operator whose services one already uses constantly may be the most reassuring option.